Tag Archives: book review

“David Ruffle’s latest takes our heroes to New York, after Holmes accepts a commission to train its police detectives in his methods.   Before long, however, he and Watson journey to Fall River, Massachusetts to reinvestigate the Borden Mur­ders, still officially unsolved five years beyond.   Complicating their task is a series of new slaughters, for it seems the notorious Lizzie has not ground her last ax.  Ruffle’s research is com­mend­able; he quotes extensively from transcripts of the famous trial and enlivens his text with contemporary photographs.  The minor characters are all well drawn (some are also interestingly named!); and Lizzie Borden confirms her reputation as a mystifying “sphinx of cold­ness.”  Without revealing the result of Holmes’ deductions, the novel’s chief delights remain (as always) Ruffle’s meticulous recreation of the late Victorian world and his obvious affection for the great detective and his Boswell.”   – Thomas A. Turley, author of ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Tainted Canister’

Holmes and Watson – An American Adventure is available for pre order from all good bookstores including The Strand Magazine,  Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Kindle, Kobo,Nook and Apple iBooks (iPad/iPhone).

“James Carlopio’s SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE JULY CRISIS (London: MX Publishing, 2015; 148 pp.) is a story created with an interesting approach: he has used words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs taken from the Canon to devise a new pastiche, resulting in a tale told very much in the style of Conan Doyle; some of the plot devices will be familiar, but Carlopio has succeeded in achieving what he calls “creative editing.”  The author has a web-site at <www.jamescarlopio.com>.”

Sherlock Holmes and the July Crisis 2nd Edition is available from all good bookstores including Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository .

“This novel re-imagines Dr. Watson’s marriage to the ill-fated Mary Morstan, after their daughter (also Mary) confronts her aging, absent father with her mother’s long-lost diary. Hamish Crawford creates a pair of sympathetic heroines and offers an original perspective on a period that is undoubtedly the apex of the Canon. Yet, it is difficult to know whom he considers “the best and wisest man” referred to in the title. Mrs. Hudson’s comment that Holmes and Watson ought to “have married each other” summarizes Crawford’s thesis. Hitherto one of the most consistently loyal characters in literature, here the doctor vacillates between his marital responsibilities and his passion for adventure. Toward Mary, he is alternately loving and neglectful, with ultimately dire results. Determined to do better with his second family, he eventually deserts Holmes altogether. Such psychological undercurrents were always implicit in Watson’s relationships with Holmes and Mary, and Crawford’s interpretation provides some fascinating insights. The result, however, is that his characters’ conduct is often bafflingly inconsistent. While nicely written overall, the book is marred by modernisms (as when Mary describes her husband as “gung-ho”). Despite its minor flaws, The Best and Wisest Man remains a touching, thought-provoking novel. I recommend it both as a worthy addition to Sherlockian literature and as a meditation on the perils of marriage for a man of action.”

Reviewed by Thomas A. Turley, author of ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Tainted Canister’

The Best and Wisest Man is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA,Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Kindle, Kobo, Nook and Apple iBooks (iPad/iPhone).

“I thoroughly enjoyed all five of the stories in the ‘Tangled Skeins’. All very different but all have the same A.C.Doyle magic woven into them by the author. David Marcum captures the real feel of London and it’s populace during the period when Holmes was practicing and also beyond, when in retirement. Vivid scenes are set and he brings them to life with just sufficient detail to allow your imagination to fill in the rest. Bravo! I shall definitely be reading more of Mr Marcum’s work!”

Reviewed by Dick Gillman

Sherlock Holmes – Tangled Skeins is available from all good bookstores including The Strand Magazine,  Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Kindle, Kobo and Apple iBooks(iPad/iPhone).

“This hardback edition, published in 2014, combines two earlier collections. Volume I consists of traditional pastiches, ranging from the faintly comic to the genuinely tragic, and even including a case-within-a-case. All the stories are cleverly plotted and very much in Conan Doyle’s own style. The latter tales are more ambitious, in that they begin during the period of Holmes’ supposed “retirement,” when (at his brother Mycroft’s urging) he worked to counter German espionage prior to World War I, as recounted by Doyle in “His Last Bow.“ That poignant case was hardly Holmes’ last bow for David Marcum. With remarkable originality, he sets his next two stories in the 1920s, when Holmes and Watson find themselves visiting Marcum’s own ancestors in east Tennessee. Fine as these stories are in their own right, even more valuable for Sherlockian scholars is the skillful way that Marcum (in this volume and its recent successor, Tangled Skeins) fleshes out the bare chronology of Baring-Gould’s Sherlock of Holmes of Baker Street with biographical detail, offering a fascinatingly complete picture of the lives of Holmes and Watson, from before their first meeting until the doctor’s death in 1929. Even readers who wrongheadedly regard the Canon as detective fiction will find The Papers of Sherlock Holmes well worth investigating.”

Reviewed by Thomas A. Turley, author of “Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Tainted Canister”

The Papers of Sherlock Holmes Volume 1 and 2 Hardback Edition is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble USA, Amazon UK,Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository .