I AM an OMNIVOROUS READER” Book Reviews by M J Elliott, Kathryn White, David Stuart Davies, Auberon Redfearn, Alistair Duncan and Roger Johnson
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“I AM AN OMNIVOROUS READER” Book reviews by M J Elliott, Kathryn White, David Stuart Davies, Auberon Redfearn, Alistair Duncan and Roger Johnson Baker Street Irregular by Jon Lellenberg. Arkham original BSIs might feel about their significant House/Mycroft & Moran . 2010. 404 pp. $39.95 inclusion in what is, essentially, a work of fiction. But Jon Lellenberg draws on his considerable it is never less than engrossing, and often moving — knowledge of the world of Sherlock Holmes and the the details of the gradual deterioration of inner workings of the Baker Street Irregulars for his Hazelbaker’s marriage are positively heartbreaking. first novel. Unexpectedly, his book is not a pastiche, What Baker Street Irregular indisputably is is a damn although Lellenberg has edited several collections of fine read, and we must be grateful to Mr Lellenberg such tales. In fact, Baker Street Irregular is only and the good people at Mycroft & Moran for that. tangentially connected to Holmes, dealing (as the title M J E suggests) with the founder members of New York’s BSI. Of course, he’s not the first writer to do so; I The Baker Street Phantom by Fabrice Bourland, believe that honour would go to Anthony Boucher, translated by Morag Young. Gallic Books . 2010. 208 but Lellenberg’s work is far from being a detective pp. £7.99 romp. Its serious content means that it is very far This novel is completely impossible but great fun. from being any kind of a romp. It is 1932 and Andrew Singleton and James The protagonist is one Woody Hazelbaker, an Trelawney, novice Canadian private detectives, are ambitious New York lawyer. We meet him first at the drawn to London, settling in rooms in Montague height of the Wall Street Crash, when, in order to Street, just around the corner from the British avoid dismissal, he is forced to take nightclub owner Museum. Sound familiar? and gangster Owney Madden as a client – in an Singleton is the son of an eminent Spiritualist and attempt to suggest an early Canonical connection, it is here that fact and fiction meet, merge for a while Madden is likened to Moriarty, though he is clearly and then bound off into the realms of the fantastic. nothing like the Master’s famous adversary. Singleton’s and Trelawney’s first major client is none Thereafter, Hazelbaker moves in a variety of social other than Arthur Conan Doyle’s widow. She is circles, including that of such Holmesian enthusiasts concerned by two strange happenings: peculiar voices as Vincent Starrett, Basil Davenport and Christopher in Sir Arthur’s room at the point of his death two Morley. years earlier and now a poltergeist style haunting at a With the rise of Adolf Hitler and the threat to significant address in the recently re-numbered Baker Europe, matters take a more serious turn. This is by Street. far the most successful element of the novel — unlike Are Singleton & Trelawney faced with the many pieces of historical fiction, the book does not manifestation of Conan Doyle’s most famous creation, wear the author’s research on its sleeve. In fact, the Sherlock Holmes, or a cheap trick? A series of violent constant rumour and doubt serves to convey the murders complicates matters and someone — or growing sense of unease felt by the American something — is replicating killings from popular population as a Nazi invasion of England becomes Victorian fiction. The terrible aspects of Dr Jekyll more likely. Many in the States wish to avoid war and Mr Hyde , The Picture of Dorian Gray and altogether and leave the British to their fate, but Dracula are made flesh. Improbable, but strangely several members of the BSI are determined to help compelling — and highly entertaining. Bourland’s the old country, including Hazelbaker, whose wife is characterisation of an ectoplasmic Holmes is actually a wealthy Nazi apologist. solidly grounded and convincing. The chase takes the It’s as well that the publishers, Mycroft & Moran, dynamic duo, with assorted Spiritualists in tow, claim to select their titles “by merit, not on whether through the darkened streets of London in pursuit of a they were commercially viable projects”, since it’s terrible and evil presence. The crimes are real enough, difficult to imagine the audience for which this book but is the killer human or from a realm beyond? might be intended. Is it an historical thriller? If so, it’s This is a rattling read, keeping you guessing, one of limited interest to the general public, dealing intriguing in its exploration of the power of the as it does with the imagined involvement in the war popular novel, and with a surprisingly moving of a small group dedicated to the life of a Victorian conclusion. detective. Is it a Sherlock Holmes novel? Hardly. In KW fact, the reader might be surprised how little of a Holmesian nature is included in the book, beyond a The Apocryphal Cases of Sherlock Holmes by R. few scattered quotes (Basil Rathbone’s debut in The Wolfgang Schramm. Xlibris , 2010. 78pp. $10.00 (on Hound of the Baskervilles , released in 1939, receives Amazon.com) less attention than Raymond Massey’s Speckled The problem with self-published volumes — like Band ). One also wonders how relations of those this collection of three short pastiches — is that the company who turn out the final article have no ambience of the (here) Edwardian era. The story editorial input. And this work sorely needed firm introduces a very ingenious basic idea, whereby the editorial guidance. The layout is severely flawed with, latest technology of the age conspires to produce a for example, two characters talking on the same line, crime unique in the annals of malefaction. The tale is and capital letters used in an ad hoc fashion. strongly plotted, and all the loose ends of the suitably Stylistically it is clunky and cumbersome. The tangled skein are neatly teased out and tied together characterisation of Holmes and Watson, while fondly at the end, with a satisfying profusion of false trails detailed, is clichéd and naïve: along the way. The whole is seasoned with some sly “… ‘Come in Watson you must be chilled to the touches of humour — not to mention the odd pawky bone.’ ‘Holmes,’ I said as I burst through the door, pun. ‘how on earth could you have possibly known it was The inspired concept of setting the principal me?’” action entirely in the concert hall of the Baker Street All this is a pity because the three mysteries and Chamber Music Society greatly facilitates its their solutions are rather clever. The author is an translation into dramatic form, the audience at the emeritus professor of nuclear physics and he has used play becoming the audience in the concert hall. As I his special knowledge in constructing puzzles was privileged to take the part of Holmes in the first concerning the Turin Shroud, the Loch Ness Monster performance at Smarden, Kent, in 2008, I can vouch and in the post retirement tale of the mystery of the for the fact that the drama plays extraordinarily well. Tunguska Explosion. Intriguing ideas — it’s just a To paraphrase a closing remark by Holmes, the shame about the exposition. I’m afraid this volume is demonstration of method in the one case, and the for completists only. murder in the other, were both effected by means DSD which “would have been impossible just a few years ago”. If this intriguing fact does not make you yearn Fifty Years in Baker Street by Jens Byskov Jensen to read the book, then it jolly well should! BSI. The Baker Street Irregulars & The Cimbrian AR Friends of Baker Street . 2010. vi + 95pp. $11.95 In a sense this book will have a limited appeal (as The Sherlockian by Graham Moore. Twelve . 2010. it has a limited print run) because it deals with the 368 pp. £16.14 history of a small Sherlockian scion of the Baker This is the story of new “Irregular” Harold and his Street Irregulars based in Denmark. However all quest to find answers about the death of famous Holmesians have memories and tales to tell regarding Sherlockian Alex Cale and to locate Arthur Conan the society they belong to and how it developed and Doyle’s lost diary. In parallel we head into the past flourished. It is great fun to learn of the fortunes and and follow Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker as they history of other groups and compare notes. The investigate the murder of a number of women in Cimbrian Friends of Baker Street is the oldest London’s East End. Sherlockian scion society in Denmark, formed in I have to confess that during the first few chapters 1960 as an offshoot of the Sherlock Holmes Klubben. my eyebrows were almost permanently raised as the Nicely presented in English with attractive author Graham Moore re-wrote the history of Conan illustrations, this slim volume charts with charm and Doyle in order to make his story work. Conan Doyle modesty the development of the society and its not only gains an extra son, Roger, but also a gradual involvement with groups in other parts of the grandson, Sebastian, and lives out his final years at world including the SHSL. One major aspect that the Undershaw rather than Windlesham. Initially these book reveals is what can be achieved with continued changes worried me as I wondered where Moore enthusiasm, dedication and love for Sherlock Holmes. intended to go with them but as the story moved on And hard work too.