Category Archives: Uncategorized

Some of my fellow Holmes authors have been engaging in friendly discourse about pastiche and what it really means, so here is my addition to the conversation.

According to dictionary.com, a pastiche is “a literary, musical, or artistic piece consisting wholly or chiefly of motifs or techniques borrowed from one or more sources.”

By this definition, most, if not all, Holmes-related fiction qualifies as pastiche. This is the definition I espouse. Other authors have a different viewpoint, notably celebrated Sherlockians David Ruffle and Dan Andriacco, who consider true Holmes pastiche to be only works that imitate Conan Doyle’s style and employ Watson as their narrator. Personally, I find such a narrow definition to be unnecessarily limiting.

When I think of the idea of literary pastiche of any kind–Holmes is by no means the only character employed in this way–I do not expect authors to strictly adhere to the original creator’s style. For instance, I do not expect books that use Jane Austen’s characters to sound exactly like…

This is a very exciting post…my publisher is sponsoring a debate over who is contributing most to the wonderful legacy of Sherlock Holmes, the Warner Brothers movies by Guy Ritchie starring Robert Downey, Jr,  and Jude Law, or the BBC series Sherlock, starring that British guy, Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson.

In addition, there will be in total 10 fan places in the debate, two of which have been awarded already (one per week) to fans in the USA and Japan. The list of confirmed participants is wonderful – from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, to Sherlockology, The Baker Street Babes to I Hear of Sherlock, lots of actors, writers, directors and of course Holmes authors.

My last review was devoted to Ruffle’s novella, “Sherlock Holmes and the Lyme Regis Horror.” However, his book contains plenty more. Let’s have a look, shall we?

Watson is to cricket as George Will is to baseball. For him, the sport is the embodiment of everything that is good about the British Empire: “honour, an inherent sense of duty and fair play,” as he declares in “Horror.” So when famed Australian batsman Victor Trumper shows up at 221B, asking Holmes to look into a kidnapping threat, he’s both shocked and eager to help. “The Trumper Affiar” (previously published as an e-pub on Amazon) is a solid story, written along more traditional lines than “Horror.” Ruffle provides accurate historical details, both in the setting and characters (actual cricket players), and his end notes are a nice touch for history aficionados. Holmes and Watson are also nicely in character and we’re treated…

To truly engage with any story, the reader has to like or at least care about the central character.  This is something which I have always found difficult about the original Empty House.

I had followed as the earlier stories took me through the many adventures Watson had experienced since meeting his eccentric friend in the lab at St Barts. I had come to learn through his words that Sherlock Holmes was not simply a thinking machine but also possessed a great heart.  I truly believed that he cared deeply for Watson and trusted him above all others.  But then along comes the Empty House and these beliefs are thrown into doubt.

I find it hard to like Holmes in the Empty House.  At the centre of the story is a massive lie and we learn that rather than trust Watson with the most important secret of all, Holmes turns…

The Well-Read Sherlockian has published a lovely, very detailed review of Barefoot on Baker Street.

Below are a few extracts from the review. To read it in full click here

“Barefoot on Baker Street is Charlotte Anne Walters’ first novel, and the seven years’ of work she devoted to it have had impressive results.”

“It’s common for main characters in first novels to be “Mary Sues,” perfect in every way, even their (minimal) flaws somehow adorable. Fiction, romantic fiction in particular, also suffers from a preponderance of feisty heroines, to the point that they’ve become a stereotype. Walters avoids both of these pitfalls. Red is a fully realized woman, more flawed than not, who must do some difficult emotional work to mature. Because she’s so vividly alive, she avoids one of the fates that commonly befall new pastiche characters; the reader cares about her, and doesn’t skip through her story…

When I first thought of doing this blog, I planned on reviewing books based on a monthly theme–reviewing only Watson books in July, for example. With the rapid influx of new pastiche, I’ve had to scrap this plan just to keep up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have the occasional theme month. And since it’s February, what better theme to use than…romance?

I know, I know, a few of you are about to navigate away. Not everyone likes the idea of giving Sherlock Holmes a love life.  But ever since Doyle told William Gillette that he could “marry him, murder him, or do anything you like to him,” writers have been taking him at his word and producing quite a lot of Holmesian hook-ups. So many, in fact, that it was hard to choose among them, and I’ve had to leave three of my favorites for another day.  This…