The year is 1890 and London is shocked by a series of brutal murders in London’s docklands. Scotland Yard is desperate for assistance and call on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson to provide it.

“Sherlock Holmes and the Thames Murders” by Johanna M. Rieke is a corker of a book. Well plotted and well written, it is a delicious read from start to finish.

Ms. Rieke has kept the characters very true to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s originals, and the friendship between Holmes and Watson, always an important part of any pastiche for me, is rock solid.

“Sherlock Holmes and the Thames Murders” was first published in German in 2012. This English edition is published by MX Publishing in 2020.

The book evokes the time and the place with some considerable skill. It is no stretch of the imagination to describe the book as a masterpiece.

I look forward…