“I AM AN OMNIVOROUS READER”

Book reviews by MICHAEL COX, MATTHEW J ELLIOTT and ROGER JOHNSON

Melancholia in Music. The Posthumous Motets of views on these final shows possess more insight than those Orlandus Lassus by . Edited and of the average viewer. annotated by Michael Procter. Edition Michael Procter . In addition to the behind-the-scenes production 2012. 42pp. €8.50 plus postage, also available as a information, Mr Cox is startlingly honest about any printable pdf file €3.00. disputes, but always presenting both sides of the argument, Of all Holmes’s monographs, his study of the music of and without animosity (except, perhaps, when it comes to Lassus is the most controversial. Guy Warrack doubted its his clashes with that bane of creativity, the accountants). very existence, and many commentators have jeered at the There is no doubt of his enthusiasm for Holmes and his title as tautologous on the grounds that all motets are knowledge of the Canon, and the many scholarly works polyphonic. Worse still, Watson appears to describe the devoted to it, to which he refers from time-to-time. motets as mediaeval when they actually belong to the late Photographs of Brett as Holmes are legion, but the book Renaissance. Here at last is a specialist in the sacred music contains a good many which I had never seen before. of that period who takes a more positive view. While Those who view the Brett episodes as flawless may be consulting a complete edition of the Lassus motets in the surprised to find the author expressing certain regrets — Bavarian State Library in Munich, Michael Procter found some mild (the clarity of a line of dialogue in The Priory some pencilled notes apparently left there by a previous School ), some considerable (the disappointing Hound of reader. The notes, entitled Melancholia in Music , make up the Baskervilles ). In many cases, it’s fair to say that the main text of this booklet. perhaps he is being more critical than the rest of us because Mr Procter is in no doubt that the “previous reader” was of the nature of his rôle. And one can only wonder how Holmes and that the title he chose for his monograph goes certain productions would have turned out had he remained a long way to explain why Lassus fascinated him so. The in charge. Oxford Companion to Music says of Lassus that “through It’s too bad that the author is now retired from over-exercise of his intellectual faculties he latterly fell into television, for in his new introduction he presents a settled melancholy”, a condition with which Holmes tantalizing indications of how he might approach the would have had much sympathy. Mr Procter translates the stories today, as well as acknowledging the success of the mainly Biblical texts of the later motets and relates them to recent BBC series Sherlock and the hit film starring Robert the Holmes canon. He also makes an elegant connection Downey Jr and Jude Law (modestly, he does not point out between the depression suffered by both Holmes and that he gave the young Law one of his earliest screen roles Lassus with the bi-polar disorder which afflicted Jeremy in Shoscombe Old Place ). Brett. A Study in Celluloid is the record of ’s The booklet is beautifully produced and, if the Holmes, from the boyish, infective enthusiasm of the descriptions of the motets whet your appetite for the music, series’ early years to the star’s tragic demise. I can you will be glad to know that Michael Procter has recorded recommend no finer book on the subject, for there is no these works with the Hofkapelle Ensemble on the finer book. Christophorus label (CHR 77255). MJE MC and the Vatican Murders by Gyles A Study in Celluloid by Michael Cox. Gasogene Press . Brandreth. John Murray . 2011. xxi+325pp. £19.99 2011. xvi+222pp. $28.95. The fifth of the Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries opens in Since 1984, the Granada Television series starring 1892 at Bad Homburg, where is Jeremy Brett as Holmes has rarely been off the air. It seems taking a few days’ break to catch up with his, and his that the programmes will enjoy as long a life on our screens fictional detective’s, correspondence. A chance meeting as the Rathbone and Bruce films. This reprint of Michael with Wilde and the discovery of three unexpected objects Cox’s book is extremely welcome, and an invaluable among the letters and packages addressed to Sherlock addition to the bookshelf of any Holmesian enthusiast. No- Holmes lead the two to Rome. The objects are a lock of one is better qualified to chart the history of the series than hair, a severed hand and a severed finger, but the bodies Mr Cox, who raised the notion of a lavish, faithful they came from must have been long dead — so what do adaptation of the Canon in the first place, and then served they signify? In Rome, the two must tread very carefully. as producer or executive producer on all except the three They may have been summoned by one of the Pope’s feature-length episodes based on the short stories and the chaplains... by the new Anglican chaplain in Rome... by six hour-long episodes that made up The Memoirs . Having someone at the British Embassy... or even by the played such an important role in the earlier productions, his remarkable Swedish doctor, Axel Munthe. Oscar encounters an old enemy and Arthur meets an old Sherlock Holmes on the Air by J Elliott. MX schoolfellow, but intrigue and dissimulation abound, Publishing . 2012. 340pp. £14.99/$22.95/€16.99 murder is committed in the heart of the Holy See, and Holmes first appeared on radio in 1931, and audio another murder waits to be discovered. Conan Doyle acts dramas far outnumber television plays or films. The as Wilde’s assistant, and it’s he who tells the tale, many Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on BBC Radio 4 years later, in the knowledge, which we share, that has finished, but an American series of the same name, destruction would soon come upon his friend. Gyles created by Jim French, began syndication in 1998 and Brandreth’s writing is, as always, completely assured. Both thrives today. Matthew Elliott contributed his first script in portraits have the authentic touch, and Wilde’s 2003 and is now one of the most prolific and intelligent conversation is pure gold. The subsidiary characters are writers in the field. If you’ve ever listened to a radio play splendidly drawn, as is the setting; the mystery baffles, and and asked yourself, “How did they do that?” — or even, its solution dazzles. Mr Brandreth’s suggestion that Oscar “Why did they do that?” — you’ll love this satisfyingly Wilde was the inspiration for is, I think, chunky volume. Here are eight of Mr Elliott’s best scripts original and decidedly convincing. for The Further Adventures , plus “” and “The Empty House” from The Classic Adventures of An Entirely New Country: Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes , the parallel series of dramatisations from and the Resurrection of Sherlock Holmes the Canon, which has been his sole domain since he began by Alistair Duncan. MX Publishing . 2011. 309pp. £12.99/ it in 2005. Check the Imagination Theater recordings at $19.95/ €14.99 www.jimfrenchproductions.com , and enjoy the book! Close to Holmes confirmed Alistair Duncan as a truly important writer in our field. In The Norwood Author he As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary illuminated an essential period in the life of Conan Doyle, Prehistory of Virtual Reality by Michael Saler. Oxford when Sherlock Holmes leapt to international fame — and University Press . 2012. x+283pp. £60.00/ $99.00 hbk, his creator killed him. Mr Duncan’s new book throws light £17.99/ $27.95 pbk on the years that followed, when Conan Doyle and his We are not, of course, alone in our acceptance of a family lived in Undershaw, the house he’d had built at fictional creation as real. Moreover, our activities have an Hindhead, the centre of an informal community of writers intellectually respectable pedigree. You knew that and artists, where conditions were favourable for his instinctively, of course, but it’s rather good to have the fact invalid wife Louise. During the Undershaw years he wrote endorsed by an eminent academic. Professor Saler’s book The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Return of Sherlock charts the development of imaginative reality and explores Holmes . He served as a field surgeon in the Boer War and the psychological and social reasons for its success, wrote a full history of the conflict. He adopted the cause of concentrating on the creations of Conan Doyle, H P the wrongly convicted George Edalji. He was knighted. Lovecraft and J R R Tolkien. By exercising what he calls And he fell in love with Jean Leckie, who would become ironic imagination , we can live for a while in a different his second wife. Today, Undershaw is in a sad state, empty world, sharing it with kinsprits, but we never actually and threatened by inappropriate “development”. It’s fitting disconnect ourselves from mundane reality. It’s little that the foreword to this admirable book was written by wonder, really, that so many writers of fantasy and science , the Patron of the Undershaw Preservation fiction — Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Neil Gaiman, Trust. August Derleth, Robert Bloch and others — have been enthusiastic players of the Holmesian game. The Grand Game: A Celebration of Sherlockian Scholarship. Volume Two: 1960-2010 edited by Laurie R Introducing Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective King & Leslie S Klinger. The . According to Doyle by William Hyder. The Battered 2012. xii + 391pp. $39.95 plus postage in USA, $49.95 Silicon Dispatch Box . 2011. 311pp. Cdn$25.00; e-book plus postage elsewhere Cdn$12.99 For compiling the two magnificent volumes of The The subtitle is a trifle misleading. Most of the book is Grand Game Ms King and Mr Klinger surely deserve Sir pure Conan Doyle, being the texts of eight significant cases James Damery’s encomium: “You have done wonders – plus the opening chapters of A Study in Scarlet , but the wonders!” The second volume includes sixty-one essays, “biography” with which Mr Hyder links them seems to all instructive, enlightening and entertaining, covering what derive mostly from his own imagination. We’re told, for appears to be (though of course it isn’t) the entire field. instance, that Sherlock’s brother was given the name Among the legendary names — Poul Anderson, S Tupper Mycroft by his mother, the first syllable reflecting “her Bigelow, Bernard Davies, W S Baring-Gould, Michael possessive feelings towards her first-born” and the second, Harrison, et al — it’s a delight to find articles by William “taken from her maiden name” of Howcroft, being “her Hyder, Grant Eustace, John Hall, Reggie Musgrave, way of affirming her presence in a household dominated by Rosane McNamara, Nicholas Utechin and Guy Marriott. her husband”. This has nothing to do with Conan Doyle, (And, believe it or not, a shock to see something of mine as and in any case “Mycroft” is a real name, particularly well.) No such anthology can be definitive, but it’s no notable in Derbyshire (Bernard Davies’s essay “Mycroft exaggeration to call The Grand Game essential. Country” is especially enlightening). William Hyder is one of today’s best and most interesting Holmesian scholars, last of Moriarty’s gang was captured, and how the young but Introducing Sherlock Holmes belongs, I think, Sherlock Holmes, newly down from university, solved an alongside the inventive “biographies” of W S Baring- apparently impossible case of theft. These are exactly the Gould and Nick Rennison. sort of narratives that we find in Conan Doyle. The plots are clever without being too fancy, the writing is literate The Illustrated Speckled Band: The Original 1910 and appropriate, the atmosphere is authentic, and the Stage Production in Script and Photographs by Sir characters ring true — except that Arthur Conan Doyle, edited by Leslie S Klinger. Gasogene disconcertingly drops his aitches, which he never does in Books . 2012. viii+104pp. $19.95 the true Canon. Half a mark off for that, then, but otherwise There are two versions of Conan Doyle’s script, though wholeheartedly recommended! (And it’s nice that the book they don’t differ by much. The earlier, The Stonor Case , is dedicated to our Society’s President.) can be found in Richard Lancelyn Green’s The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes and Leslie Klinger’s The Apocrypha of Sherlock Holmes at the Breakfast Table by L F E Sherlock Holmes . This one, reverting to the original title, Coombs. Robert Hale . 2012. 222pp. £19.99 also appears in Jack Tracy’s Sherlock Holmes: The Leslie Coombs is the author of half a dozen well- Published Apocrypha . The author made many changes in regarded books on rail and air transport — topics that adapting his story for the stage: some are clearly for better inform several of the thirteen stories in this volume. We dramatic effect and some are dictated by the need to flesh always knew that Dr Watson was familiar with Bradshaw ; out a short story to the size of a three-act play, but others these narratives reveal an unexpected and engaging — the renaming of characters, for instance — may be knowledge of other aspects of the railways. Most of the evidence of his real lack of interest in the Holmes stories. tales involve Holmes and Watson in matters of national The result, even so, was a popular and critical success. The importance, including espionage and sabotage, and real importance of this very nice new edition is threefold: naturally Mycroft Holmes makes his presence felt. the contemporary review from The Playgoer and Society (Another recurring theme, perhaps related to the book’s Illustrated , R Dixon Smith’s skilful account of the curious title, is marmalade and the making of preserves — an circumstances in which the play came to be written and activity that can, it seems, have sinister connotations.) An performed, and the set of thirty-six excellent production editor himself, Mr Coombs writes well, apart from a couple photographs, also taken from The Playgoer . (A couple of of instances where “Holmes and I” should be “Holmes and days after the book reached me I had the chance to buy the me”, and with an evident knowledge and love of the period programme from the original production at the Adelphi — and of Conan Doyle’s stories. The ingenuity and which I did, promptly!) excitement of the stories, studded with the occasional dry, subtle joke, such as a house at Grantchester named Sherlock Holmes and Philosophy: The Footprints of a “Archers”, is decidedly appealing. Gigantic Mind edited by Josef Steiff. Open Court. 2011. viii+376pp. $19.95 Holmes Sweet Holmes by Dan Andriacco. MX Publishing . Among the thirty-eight contributors to this interesting 2012. 260pp. £10.99/$18.99/€12.99 anthology, I recognise just one name: Rafe McGregor, who I loved No Police Like Holmes , Dan Andriacco’s first argues that The Hound of the Baskervilles is not a mystery novel about Sebastian McCabe and Jeff Cody, and I’m but a horror story. The range of topics and approaches is delighted to recommend the second, which has a curiously very wide, and the “philosophy” of the title often seems to topical touch. Holmes Sweet Holmes concerns the murder be no more than a convenient tag. Besides essays on of Peter Gerard, writer, director and star of 221B Bourbon Holmes’s logic, his use of drugs, and his regard for the law, Street , which reimagines Sherlock Holmes as a jazz- there are others here on graphic novels, , playing American in 1920s New Orleans. The film is a hit, Sherlock and Star Trek . The book is, after all, one of a but some Sherlockian fundamentalists have sent hate mail. series called Popular Culture and Philosophy, and what Did an angry Sherlockian break in to St Benignus College could have been academic fustian actually has a certain and kill Gerard? And how could Gerard be murdered welcome playfulness. twice? The characters are appealing, the plot is cunning, and the writing is literate and witty. This is classy stuff! The Secret Archives of Sherlock Holmes by June Thomson. Allison & Busby . 2012. 285pp. £19.99), The Secret Journal of Dr Watson by Phil Growick. MX June Thomson, creator of Inspector Finch, and author Publishing . 2012. xii + 288pp. £10.99/$18.95/€12.99. of the excellent Holmes & Watson: A Study in Friendship , This is Holmes and Watson’s most dangerous mission. is one of the few writers who can capture the Doyle- In 1918, at the personal request of King George, they risk Watson style almost to perfection (I don’t suppose their lives to save those of the King’s cousins, the deposed anyone’s got it exactly right). In her sixth collection of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. On their journey deep into short stories, she reveals the facts of the Conk-Singleton a Russia torn by violent revolution, they discover that forgery, the arrest of Colonel Carruthers, the Abergavenny friend and foe alike have their own agendas. Plans are murder, and the case of Madame Montpensier; we also suspect and identities are uncertain: even their most learn how Holy Peters was finally brought to book, how the trustworthy helper, the British spy Sidney Reilly, is also Colonel Relinsky of the secret police. Though Holmes and murderous. J Bruce Ismay, Managing Director of the White Watson are in constant danger from both Reds and Whites, Star Line — and one of the comparative few to escape the the greatest threat is from the unknowns — the “black sinking ship, is the most hated man in Britain. He is faction” — who want the Romanovs and their rescuers haunted by the phantom of a drowned woman, and he dead. The events often seem to hover on the edge of the seems to carry death with him. The solution may not hold improbable, but so much is verifiable history, played out by up scientifically, but the mystery is tantalising. The real people, that the drama and its characters exude magnitude of the disaster, and the sorrow and pain it authenticity, and despite the occasional stylistic infelicity caused, are treated with integrity and respect. Writer and (notably the consistent use of “shall” for “will”), the actors expose raw depths in Watson’s and Holmes’s narrative carries you along like an express train. complex personalities, and it all rings true. Michael Maloney’s performance as the tortured Ismay is Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer at Scotney Castle outstanding. by Tim Symonds. MX Publishing . 2012. v + 277pp. £11.99/£18.95/€13.99 The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes read by Derek Jacobi. Once again Holmes and Watson become entangled in a AudioGO . 8 CDs. 2012. £20.40 potentially devastating political conspiracy. In 1904 an The Casebook is certainly the most varied of the five invitation to address the exclusive Kipling League at a books of short stories. Some scholars have even refused to Sussex country house has unexpected consequences for accept it as authentic, but if “The Lion’s Mane” and “The them. Holmes suspects that the lecture was arranged to Blanched Soldier” are pretty poor, there are some real gems provide an alibi for the murder at nearby Scotney Castle, here. “Thor Bridge” and “The Retired Colourman” are at but uncovering the truth stretches his powers to the limit as least in the second rank, and “The Veiled Lodger”, with its the killers have learned more from him than he supposed mixture of domestic abuse and exotic tragedy seems to me — and the Kipling League’s schemes, like those of Baron to deserve a high place. Derek Jacobi treats each tale as if it Maupertuis, are colossal. It’s an engrossing tale, well told. were a masterpiece, and he almost convinces you that they all are. Audio Books Starrett Speaks: The Lost Recordings . Wessex Press . 1 The Reification of Hans Gerber by George Mann. Big CD. 2012. $12.95 Finish . 2 CDs. 2011. £14.99 / The Hound of the ’s book The Private Life of Sherlock Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Big Finish . 2 Holmes is a necessity for every Holmesian — even if he CDs. 2011. £14.99 / The Tangled Skein by David Stuart does pronounce it ‘Hol-meesian’. Starrett Speaks is more Davies. Big Finish . 2 CDs. 2012. £14.99 / The Adventure of a luxury. After Steven Doyle’s informative introduction, of the Perfidious Mariner by Jonathan Barnes. Big we have Starrett reciting his own most famous work, the Finish . 1 CD. 2012. £8.99 sonnet “221B”, followed by a brief, mad parody called Nicholas Briggs and Richard Earl, a formidable, “The Acephalous Agronomist”. Then Starrett’s recorded intelligent duo, are now among the very best portrayers of greeting to the Sherlockians assembled in New York and the detective and the doctor, and these productions vary his even briefer “Ave Sherlock” flank the longest piece, a only in content: the quality is consistently excellent. The recording (off-air?) of Book Beat , a television programme Reification of Hans Gerber begins with a frantic search for in the Chicago area from about 1962. Interviewed the will of Sir Theobald Maugham, under which his four alongside Starrett is his friend Orlando Park, whose relations stand to benefit. But Sherlock Holmes’s encyclopaedia Sherlock Holmes, Esq, and John H Watson, investigation indicates that the old man was murdered — MD was published that year. Unlike the other items, all and then another claimant shows his hand. Who is the stylish and carefully prepared, this one has the spontaneity mysterious Hans Gerber? Does he even exist? Well, he and the natural clumsiness of unrehearsed live does, or rather he did — and the significance of that fact is broadcasting. Starrett Speaks is the nearest, I suppose, that a truly ingenious device. most of us will come to encountering the great man in The Hound of the Baskervilles , of course, is Dr person. For that reason alone it’s to be treasured. Watson’s case. His narration underpins the story to a greater extent than in any other such audio drama, and E-books Richard Earl is fully equal to the task. This production is Among the rapidly growing number of e-book nail-bitingly exciting, as it should be, and the same can be publishers Endeavour Press (www.endeavourpress.com) is said of The Tangled Skein , adapted by Richard Dinnick a name to look out for. In Dr Watson’s War , military from David Stuart Davies’s sequel — which also historian Patrick Mercer gives us the full story of the completely rewrites the story of Dracula . For full-blooded perilous retreat from Maiwand, made more perilous by an gothic drama this pair would be hard to beat. encounter with Colonel George Moriarty. Watson’s life, as The Perfidious Mariner opens in 1912, with the arrival we know, was saved by his orderly (whose name, it at Holmes’s bee-farm of Dr Watson, simmering with grief appears, was actually Bowler). He saved another important and anger at the loss of his wife on RMS Titanic . Then life as well. The style is rougher and more forceful than another visitor arrives, and Watson’s rage becomes almost we’re used to, being untouched by Conan Doyle’s editorial hand, but it suits the subject matter admirably. You just Karl Schermann. Holmes solves a sly theft and exposes a know that this is what it was like. counterfeiting racket — and then another girl is murdered. Also from Endeavour come two novellas by David Holmes triumphs in the end, but only after he’s revealed Dickinson, author of the Lord Francis Powerscourt novels, the true nature of Dr Schermann. who follows Glen Petrie, Quinn Fawcett and others in Larry Millett’s novels, telling of Holmes and Watson’s devising new exploits for Sherlock’s brother. Mycroft exploits in the USA, haven’t been published here despite Holmes and the Adventure of the Silver Birches sees their popularity in America. Fortunately they’re being Inspector Lestrade faced with a plan to debase the British reprinted by the University of Minnesota Press and are currency by flooding the country with forged banknotes. easily available from the usual sources. In Sherlock Holmes His old sparring-partner has retired, so he turns to the and the Rune Stone Mystery , Holmes’s investigation of a Government Auditor, Mycroft Holmes, for help. Mycroft’s reported Viking inscription unearthed in rural Minnesota brain and Lestrade’s practicality prove a very successful involves him and Watson in theft and murder. (The combination. In Mycroft Holmes and the Adventure of the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone and other Naval Engineer , a man is murdered in Mycroft’s rooms alleged Viking artefacts is still debated.) The and he is arrested for murder. The man behind the forged Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes sees Holmes in pursuit money, Graf von der Stoltenberg, is still at large. Was he of Abe Slaney, who has returned, apparently from the dead, responsible for this atrocity? The stories are atmospheric, to abduct Elsie Cubitt, and is masquerading as the fast-moving, ingenious and very enjoyable. detective. The chase takes Holmes and Watson to Chicago, Sherlock Holmes also features in two entertaining Slaney’s home territory. In both cases, the assistance of the novellas by Richard Foreman — Raffles: The Gentleman saloonkeeper Shadwell Rafferty proves invaluable. Mr Thief and Raffles: Bowled Over . All these Endeavour Press Millett tells a compelling tale, and his ability to convey the titles are available as Kindle e-books for £1.99 each from genius loci is outstanding. Amazon. The narrator of Sam Siciliano’s novel The Angel of the The Art of Deduction by Taz Rai is available as a 102- Opera was Holmes’s cousin, Dr Vernier, who claimed that page pdf file from the author at www.artofdeduction.com/ he was the detective’s true friend, and that Watson’s ($17.97). Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s self- accounts had falsified events and distorted Holmes’s published. This is a very intelligent, sensible and well- personality. Mr Siciliano’s new book The Web Weaver argued analysis of Holmes’s method of observation and (Titan Books; £7.99/$9.95) is certainly well written, but I deduction, presented in four chapters: “A Study in just can’t believe in it. I have my doubts about Vernier’s Sherlock”, “A Case in Logic”, “The Observation Ritual”, wife as a qualified physician in the 1890s, but the and “The Sign of Holmesian Deduction”. insurmountable problem is that the protagonist, passionately in love with another man’s wife, and ever In brief ready to denigrate John H Watson, simply is not Sherlock Who were PC Pollack, and Dr Ferrier? Who lived in Holmes. Potter’s Terrace, and who went to Eton? What were It’s been a while since Anthony Read’s last novel of the Poncho and Pugilist? The title of Molly Carr’s remarkably Baker Street Boys, and I’m very pleased to welcome The comprehensive new book, A Sherlock Holmes Who’s Who Case of the Racehorse Ringer (Walker Books Ltd; £4.99). (MX Publishing; £12.99/$19.99/€14.99), gives only a hint Why not “the Baker Street irregulars”? Well, in the entire of its usefulness as a reference source. She could justifiably canon that phrase is used only once, and Mr Read very have added Where’s Where and What’s What . It’s a book reasonably assumes that the youngsters are more likely to which, I fancy, I shall consult frequently. call themselves simply “boys”. All right, two of them are Sherlockian Picture Puzzles: A Monograph on Eliot girls — or rather, three. Gertie has come back to Baker Keen’s 1905 Illustrations by John Addy (The Musgraves, Street desperate for help because her father has been Anne Jordan, Hallas Lodge, Greenside Lane, Cullingworth, wrongly arrested for murder. Holmes is abroad, Watson is Bradford BD13 5AP; £7.50 UK/£10.00 Europe/$25.00 sympathetic but powerless, so it’s up to the Baker Street USA & Canada/ $30.00 or £15.00 elsewhere; prices Boys to investigate. I suppose these books are aimed at include postage) reveals a hidden treasure — a little-known sub-teens, but they should appeal to intelligent readers of series of splendid non-canonical drawings that appeared in almost any age. various American newspapers, clearly influenced by I had my doubts about Sherlock Holmes and the Queen Frederic Dorr Steele. It will also exercise your brain! After of Diamonds by Steve Hayes & David Whitehead (Robert John Addy’s introduction, twelve of the puzzles are Hale; £18.99) as the authors are most noted for their reproduced, with answers and notes. Westerns. In fact it’s a rattling good yarn, exciting and In Sherlock Holmes & the Mayfair Murders by David well-written. A baffling series of jewel robberies is Britland (Breese Books; £7.50/$18.50/€12.50) three young somehow connected with the Music Hall, but Holmes’s women have been slaughtered in a highly respectable part investigation is interrupted when the beautiful Countess of London. There are fears that is back and Elaina Montague introduces him to Thomas Howard of has turned his attention to the West End, but rather than Missouri, in London on a deadly mission. Those who know consult Sherlock Holmes the police turn to the specious Dr something of the Wild West will easily guess the true identity of “Mr Howard”. Sherlock Holmes and the Irish Rebels (MX Publishing; Shadowblood by Tracy Revels (MX; £10.99/ £10.99/ $18.99/ €12.99). $19.95/€12.99) introduces us again to the World of Sherlock Holmes & the Whitechapel Vampire by Dean Shadows, whose interaction with our own world can be P Turnbloom (MX Publishing, www.mxpublishing.com ; devastating. Watson’s recuperation from his previous £10.99/$18.95/€12.99) is robust pulp fiction, imaginatively encounters with the supernatural is interrupted when an identifying Jack the Ripper as an aristocratic Italian undead unpleasant recluse demands that Holmes find his daughter. bloodsucker. Fact and invention are so mixed that it’s Shortly after the detective’s arrival, the old man is easiest to imagine all this happening in an alternative murdered, and Holmes’s own Shadowborn powers are version of our history. The narrative rushes along, carrying tested to the limit in a quest for the girl and, ultimately, for you with it, in the best tradition of the thriller. And at the the Fountain of Youth. The missing girl is practising blood end (a good touch, this) Sherlock Holmes still doesn’t magic and has acquired a very dangerous assistant, a believe in vampires! woman skilled in murder. Shadowblood is even more deliriously and deliciously weird than its predecessor, Shadowfall . The twelve essays in A Professor Reflects on Sherlock Holmes by Marino C Alvarez (MX; £9.99/$16.95/€12.99) are thought-provoking and entertaining. Dr Alvarez compares the writing styles of Watson and Holmes, considers Holmes’s potential as a teacher and as an academic, and distinguishes between the logical and the empirical. In the second section, he follows Holmes to Meiringen and the Reichenbach Falls, and then visits Trinity College, Oxford. Margaret Park Bridges takes a decidedly revisionist approach in her novel My Dear Watson (MX Publishing; £9.99/ $18.95/ €12.99). The detective’s secret is disclosed at the very start of the book: Sherlock Holmes was a woman. The idea isn’t new but it’s handled with great skill and confidence, and it has a purpose, to account for much of Holmes’s personality as described by Dr Watson. There’s no real contradiction here of Watson’s accounts. The woman Holmes lives as a man, and Watson believes her to be a man. Am I convinced? No. Do I accept it while reading the book? Yes, and not only because it’s essential to the story, which is a good one, involving the beautiful daughter of the late James Moriarty. The Papers of Sherlock Holmes by David Marcum (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box; www.batteredbox.com; Cdn$25.00) contains nine intriguing mysteries. The first four, in the classic tradition, are set in or near London. Then, in “The Affair of the Brother’s Request”, Holmes and Watson travel to Mr Marcum’s own homeland, rural Tennessee. The last and longest tale, “The Adventure of the Other Brother”, proposes a close family relationship between Holmes and , the sage of Praed Street, and draws on the theory that the Mycroft-like is the son of Sherlock Holmes and (there’s a nod, too, to the film Sherlock Holmes in New York ). Two years into the Great War, Dr Watson is called away from his post with the Royal Army Medical Corps and instructed to join Holmes in Dublin, where, under the alias of Liam Altamont, he has infiltrated the Irish Volunteers, who are preparing a rebellion against British rule. As we know, the Easter Rising was crushed, saving Britain from war in the west as well as the east, but disgust at the speedy execution of the leading rebels only intensified the desire for Irish independence. It’s a powerful subject, and Kieran McMullen handles it well in