Author Archives: mxpublishing

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…

Ragged, angry men were shouting slogans and demands at the gates, which were guarded on the inside by several indifferent men whose only qualifications for the job appeared to be their size.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the London Dock Deaths by Margaret Walsh is an exciting and intriguing read. Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Inspectors Lestrade and Reid are baffled by the murders that are occurring with unwarranted frequency at the River Thames docks. A dock strike is in progress. It seems that everyone in the East End of London is taking advantage in the disquiet this brings to the society of dock owners and dock workers.

A radical group, smuggling, and more are suspected. A bigoted anti-Irish police officer does his best to blame the victim of the first murder. He stalls the investigation and leaves the actual murderer free to kill again. Holmes and Lestrade address this…

The Golden Pince-Nez

Golden? Okay, so why is the pince-nez golden? Well, Holmes tells us that it’s because its owner is no slatternly type but a lady, though she turns out also to be a revolutionary, a Nihilist, another foreigner. The stories lately seem interested in foreigners. Of course, we don’t know that she and Professor Coram are foreign, Russians, till the very end. At first it seems we’re being all very British and academic, buried in the past. Holmes even begins the story by looking at a palimpsest from the fifteenth century …

A palimpsest? Something whose original peeps through from underneath, which could be a symbolic statement of what these stories are all about: finding the hidden, the secret that lurks underneath. And what is the secret here?

It is a very palimpsest of a story, isn’t…

‘Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia”‘ is not my usual sort of read. I do not usually venture into the area of Sherlockian scholarship or “pseudoscholarship”, as author Chris Chan would have it.

I am glad that I did. Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia hits every button. It is interesting, thought provoking, and extremely entertaining.

The books explores many unanswered (and in some cases previously unasked) questions. Was the King of Bohemia hiding a dark secret? Why was the photograph so dangerous? Why was Irene Adler in such as hurry to get married? These questions and many others are comprehensively answered.

Chris Chan has written a book that is a sheer delight from the first page. Chris mentions the possibilities of writing more such books. I really hope he does, as this one was such a joy to read.

“The Cotswolds Werewolf and other stories of Sherlock Holmes” was written by Peter K. Andersson and published by MX Publishing is 2014.

This great book comprises a novella: The Adventure of the Cotswolds Werewolf; and four short stories: The Adventure of the Velvet Lampshade, The Adventure of the Missing Mudlark, The Adventure of the Forking Paths, and The Adventure of the One-Armed Pugilist.

Usually with an anthology you get at least one dud story. Not this time. All five stories were excellent with each story being well plotted and well written. The titualar story has someone…or something, killing sheep in a small Cotswolds village. Holmes, reluctantly dragged there on holiday by Watson, takes on the challenge after the killer starts on people.

The friendship between Holmes and Watson is front and centre, which is something important to me in a pastiche.

A fabulous traditional Sherlock Holmes tale that will appeal…

Tracy Revels’ Sherlock Holmes novel, “Shadowfall”, published in 2011 by MX Publishing, is a book that has been sitting on my ‘To Be Read’ shelf for a while. I did not know what a delicious treasure was waiting for me.

When the sacred relics and mystical objects of London begin disappearing, Holmes is reluctant to take the case. But this isn’t an ordinary case and Holmes is far from an ordinary man.

Welcome to the world of Shadows.

“Shadowfall” isn’t traditional Holmes & Watson. This is a horror story as well as a mystery. Watson is completely human, but Holmes proves to be so much more than human.

Tracy Revels has written a darkly delicious story with much to delight people like myself, who are partial to their Holmes served with a side order of strange.

The book is well written; the writing tight and sharp, with a few light…