Let us establish one fact immediately. Gretchen Altabef is a remarkably talented author . . . she eschews the formulas that so often appear in Holmes pastiches and sets about creating a new format.

Let us establish one fact immediately. Gretchen Altabef is a remarkably talented author. In These Scattered Houses, the first book in her Sherlock Holmes trilogy, she eschews the formulas that so often appear in Holmes pastiches and sets about creating a new format; a new locale; new characters; a new story line and most important, a new Holmes.

Seldom used in other books, Holmes is his own narrator in a tale that takes place during his three year post Reichenbach hiatus in the town of Poughkeepsie New York and the campus of Vassar College. I have earned my living for several years in that city and can attest that she has captured its Mid-Hudson character…