A very detailed video review from Ross Foad, of the definitive record of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s life by Brian W Pugh. A Chronology of Arthur Conan Doyle is available through all good bookstores, including Amazon UK, Amazon USA and in electronic format such as Amazon Kindle and on iTunes/iBooks for the iPad.
“It’s pure magic if you’re a car man or woman. It’s not a whodunnit, more a ‘whereisit’, and each chapter jumps between the war years in Britain to the present telling the tale of Bentley chassis number SM3912”
How many times in your life are you going to have a living legend start a major magazine article with a glowing review of one of your books? When Kevin Gosselin was reading the current issue of Octane magazine, imagine his amazement as ACDC lead singer, and huge car enthusiast Brian Johnson opens his article on replicas with the glowing words above about Kevin’s book – he goes on to explain the premise of the plot and say out how exciting the book it.
Hunt For The Blower Bentley is the second outing for Faston Hanks a car detective who is in a race against time to find the original Blower Bentley before a replica makes it to auction.
Hunt For The Blower Bentley is available from all good bookstores and on Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and iBooks (iPad/iPhone).
“Overall this is an exciting and entertaining read which will definitely appeal to both Sherlockians and fans of Bram Stoker.”
The Bookbag is the one of the world’s largest book review sites and we are always excited to receive the email from them that a review of one of our books is ready. Their review of Gerry O’Hara’s first novel Sherlock Holmes and The Affair in Transylvania was a great one to read.
“I normally start reviews with a brief plot summary, but it seems almost besides the point to do so for a book entitled Sherlock Holmes and the Affair in Transylvania. From those seven words, the reader will have no doubt guessed that this is a Holmes meets Dracula story, and so we may as well move straight on to the burning question – is it any good?
Yes, in many ways, it is. The substitution of Holmes and Watson for Van Helsing is the main change in a story which follows the original fairly closely – other minor characters are removed or changed a bit, but we get Renfield, Lucy, Mina, and of course the Count himself drawn fairly faithfully. Most notably, Holmes and Watson themselves are extremely close to Conan Doyle’s originals; no real surprise as this is almost always a real strength of authors signed by MX Publishing.
Having said that, if I have a minor fault to find with it, it’s that it perhaps sticks a little bit too closely to the original Stoker novel; if anything; maybe a few more surprises would have made it even better. Nevertheless it held my attention from start to finish and will stick in the memory thanks to a few especially effective scenes and the great characterization of the central pair. I should also point out that I’ve read so many Holmes books recently that I’m perhaps harder to impress than the average reader, and while this doesn’t quite rank up there with the very best (which I’ll mention below), it’s a solid first novel and I would definitely be interested in reading more by Gerry O’Hara.
Overall this is an exciting and entertaining read which will definitely appeal to both Sherlockians and fans of Bram Stoker.”
You can read the full review on The Bookbag site.
Sherlock Holmes and The Affair in Transylvania is available through all good bookstores like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, in all electronic formats including Amazon Kindle and iBooks for the iPad.
“Johnson’s talent as an author of dark fiction is striking and his ability to explore the different shades of the genre are remarkable as shown in this very enjoyable book.”
In The Night, In The Dark is a collection of supernatural ghost stories from Roger Johnson that includes the collection ‘The Tales from the Endeavour’ which won the 2001 Dracula Society’s Children of the Night Award for 2001 (an award first won by Sir Terry Pratchett with ‘Mort’).
“Roger Johnson is a dark fantasy writer…and a chameleon. Ten years ago he published a collection of ghost stories in the tradition of MR James, entitled A Ghostly Crew: Tales of the Endeavour , including fifteen uncanny tales of reincarnation, witchcraft and revenge, featuring demons and other ghastly creatures, revengeful revenants and so on. Three of the stories, “The Scarecrow” where folklore gets a deadly , terrifying aspect, “The Wall-Painting” disclosing the true nature of a sinister saint, and “The Soldier”, about a strange army in a very strange church, were selected for a famous Year’s Best anthology. Slightly revised, the tales originally assembled in that early collection constitute now the first section of the present volume.
By contrast, the stories contained in the second section of In the Night In the Dark exhibit a quite different kind of fiction. Instead of the unnerving, eerie quality typical of the classic ghost stories, Johnson provides here a bunch of vivid Lovecraftian pastiches (“Aliah Warden”, “The Dreaming City”, etc.) as well as a few tales revisiting the themes and the atmosphere related to Robert W Chambers’ famous “The King in Yellow”, with a little help by Oscar Wilde.
To further prove the eclectic character of Johnson’s work, the final section of the book, called “More Things in Heaven and Earth” is a miscellanea of different styles and moods in the field of dark fantasy, such as the adventures of an incompetent ghost hunter and the clever semi-historical reconstruction of the infamous activities of the Bloody Countess, Elisabeth Bathory, depicted in the excellent “Love, Death and the Maiden”.
Johnson’s talent as an author of dark fiction is striking and his ability to explore the different shades of the genre are remarkable as shown in this very enjoyable book.”
In The Night, In The Dark is available through all good bookstores including Amazon UK,and Amazon USA and in electronic formats including Amazon Kindle.
Described by The Sherlock Holmes Society of London as “An exciting and witty romp” Dan Andriacco’s first novel No Police Like Holmes has been a big hit with Holmes fans around the world. It’s not a pastiche though, it is a mystery featuring Holmes fans rather than the great detective himself.
His first book was Baker Street Beat which is also the name of his blog, contained essays, a pastiche and some radio plays. It’s fiction though that Dan really likes to write.
Here, one of the main Sherlock Holmes reviewers in the USA, Philip K Jones (aka The Ill Dressed Vagabond) gives us a detailed overview of the book.
“This is a modern day detective mystery, set in Erin, Ohio, a College town some forty miles up river from Cincinnati. The protagonist is Jeff Cody, the public relations director at St. Benignus College. The College is hosting a Sherlock Holmes colloquium as part of celebrating the presentation of the Woolcott Chalmers Collection of Sherlockiana to the school.
The small town of Erin seems overrun with deerstalker-clad oddballs and nuts, including a number of professors and other, prominent Sherlockians. To the reader who has associated with Sherlockians and collegiate types, this book will be a constant exposure to thoughts of ‘but isn’t that Professor …?’ or ‘isn’t she an oriental?’ or “I thought he was younger’ moments. The cast is familiar, if a bit scrambled and the opinions are even more familiar and far less scrambled.
The story moves along steadily, with the customary useless police presence and the plethora of amateur ‘Sherlocks.’ Everybody has an opinion, or two or thirteen. Deductions are a dime a gross and some are even sensible. The chief police detective has issues with most of the principals and most of them reciprocate, heartily. Some of the police staff are actually competent, which is more than can be said for the enthusiastic amateur detectives. Of course, Jeff Cody’s boss is blaming all negative publicity from the various crimes perpetrated during the weekend on his public relations director. As the crime tally mounts from theft to murder and onward, his blood pressure climbs and Cody’s position teeters nearer unemployed than tenured.
The solution is fairly easy to figure out, but character and personal histories keep getting in he way. Every layer of past relations uncovered leads to more motives and more suspects. It also changes the views of the various players as their foibles are uncovered and their histories revealed. In truth, as I am sure Sherlock once remarked, most of it is irrelevant. The process of accurately defining what is and what is not relevant is the real ‘trick’ in solving a crime.
This is a pleasant novel. The characters are familiar and real, the characters experience the events, mostly, as a bewildering set of circumstances with multiple causes and a variety of possible explanations. Most have some understanding of crime solving, but are unable to make any sense out of events or are blinded by personal preconceptions and prejudices. All in all, this is quite typical of the witnesses and associates in such a set of crimes, so confusion is common and various persons pursue their own agendas and views, no matter what goes on around them.
Sherlockians will find many familiar persons in this crowd. The names and descriptions will be different, but they will all be familiar. Both villains and bystanders will seem like old friends or acquaintances and the setting sounds like a good place to convene or to collogue (what does one DO at a colloquium?).”
The book is available through all good bookstores including Amazon UK, Sherlock-Holmes.com , Amazon USA, and in ebook form including Amazon Kindle , Barnes and Noble Nook, and many others. The next one in the series is complete and the third is underway.
The British Library was the venue yesterday for a very special event – a live interview with Anthony Horowitz the author of the first new ‘approved’ Sherlock Holmes novel since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stopped writing Sherlock Holmes books nearly a century ago. The interviewer was Roger Johnson, the editor of the journal of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London and one of the world’s leading experts on everything Holmes.
The audience thoroughly enjoyed the 90 minutes of questions and answers and Anthony answered dozens of very well prepared questions from Roger (with a little help from his wife Jean) and took a lot from the audience. In the audience were a number of young Alex Rider fans who had brought along their favourite books for Anthony to sign. Two of the young gentlemen were in fact the two remaining male descendents of the Conan Doyle family. It was wonderful to see Anthony at the signing with the two explaining that, with such talented blood lines they could do nothing but be very successful at whatever they choose to do. The grins on their faces as they got their Alex Rider books signed was great.
The signing afterwards, as you can imagine was a sellout with a huge queue and Anthony staying to the very end – alongside Roger who was also signing copies of his new book ‘In The Night, In The Dark’ which includes several collections of ghost stories including Tales from The Endeavour which won the Dracula Award when it was originally published – the award first won by Terry Pratchett with Mort.
As all the audience members will I am sure agree, it was one of the most interesting book events I have been to in many years. Roger was an excellent host and handled the joint signing with Anthony very well – even if the sale count was a little in Anthony’s favour.
In The Night In The Dark is available from all good bookstores, and in all good formats including Amazon Kindle and iBooks for the iPad.
There is allegedly a recording of the event coming out and will be well worth a listen – including the question of who Anthony would like to see as Holmes and Watson. One of the final questions came from me. Shortly after Anthony suggested that the Holmes bandwagon might even see someone try to make Holmes a woman I thought I had better interject.
I pointed out that we are about to publish a novel in which Holmes reveals just that secret – My Dear Watson – which caused much amusement to Anthony and the audience. I then asked who he would like to see as a female Holmes. Suggesting that not many could carry it off, he settled on Dame Judi Dench. So, if Dame Dench’s agent gets a call this week about a new movie – you know who to blame.
“he tells a good story”
There is something special about reading the Sherlock Holmes Society of London’s monthly journal when you know there is a review of one of your books in there. The Case of The Russian Chessboard appears in this month’s edition.
The book is proving very popular in the USA in particular and is unusual in length in that it sits between the traditional Holmes short fiction and novel length.
“The Case of the Russian Chessboard by Charlie Roxburgh packs quite a lot into its 110 pages. Not for the first time, Holmes and Watson are caught up in international politics – the ‘chessboard’ is a metaphor for the deadly tussle between Russian revolutionaries and the Tsarist secret police, and the historical background is accurate. (The anarchist community that Holmes visits was only ten miles from my house.)
Mr Roxburgh’s writing is occasionally clumsy, and he hasn’t, I think, quite mastered Watson’s style, but he tells a good story, and his subject – terrorism and the control of people’s minds – remains sadly topical.”
The Case of the Russian Chessboard is now out in paperback on Amazon USA, Amazon UK, and through all good bookstores. The book is also available on Amazon Kindle and all other ebook formats.
A two part video review of Dan Andriacco’s Sherlock Holmes novel – No Police Like Holmes – from Ross K.
“I said that Shadowfall is rather like an enjoyable nightmare. Shadowblood is even more enjoyable.”
Tracy Revel’s first novel Shadowfall got rave reviews worldwide, and is already being translated into Italian. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London loved it and we couldn’t wait for their review of the sequel Shadowblood – they didn’t disappoint us.
“The sequel to Shadowfall is just as deliriously weird. Shadowblood by Tracy Revels introduces us again to the World of Shadows, whose interaction with our own world can be devastating. Watson’s recuperation from his previous encounters with the supernatural is interrupted when an unpleasant recluse demands that Holmes find his missing daughter.
Shortly after the detective’s arrival,the old man is horribly murdered, and Holmes’s own Shadowborn powers are tested to the limit in a quest for the girl and, ultimately, for the Fountain of Youth. He and Watson travel to Prague, where they are helped by Dr John Dee, and then to St Augustine, Florida, where they receive assistance and opposition from even stranger beings.
The missing girl is practising blood magic and has acquired a very dangerous assistant, a woman skilled in murder. I said that Shadowfall is rather like an enjoyable nightmare. Shadowblood is even more enjoyable.”
Shadowblood is available from all good bookstores and all formats including Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble, Amazon UK, and electronic formats soon.
Tracy Revels has a popular blog Strictly Sherlock and Tracy was on Team 1 (BBC Sherlock) in The Great Sherlock Holmes Debate in November. She joins us for the December discussion taking place on 14th December.
“The kind of inside information that guys have been crying out for”
Sue Ostler is best known for her media persona, the Flirt Diva, writing for a host of publications including Metro. She was dubbed the Queen of Love by New Woman and Cosmopolitan described the techniques in her book ‘Flirt Diva’ – “pro-level flirting lessons”.
What you may not know is that Sue has been running classes for guys for several years, and she feeds back that they are often much more eager to learn than their female counterparts.
So this year, Sue has written the male equivalent of Flirt Diva – Sex, Dating and Really Confusing Girls. FHM loved it and said that it was the inside information that all men need to be armed with when tackling the world of flirting and dating.
Whilst Sue’s style is undeniably fun, this is a serious book with structured and successful techniques for being more successful and finding the right person for you. This is no ‘Bro’s Playbook’ or ‘A**hole’s Guide to Handling Chicks’ but a genuinely useful book for those that need a hand in the dating department.
Sue runs flirting classes in her native London and the book is full or practical, tried and tested techniques that aren’t designed to ‘trick and deceive’ women by presenting yourself as something you are not, but enabling you to shine in your own right.
Sex Dating and Really Confusing Girls is available from all good bookstores including Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble USA, Amazon UK, The Book Depository and soon in all electronic formats. You can check out all Sue’s books and live classes at her Flirt Dive Website.
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