Jon LellenbergReseñas

Another book of Sherlock Holmes pastiche, better than average quality, with only two stories that I felt the need to bypass, a ridiculous parody and Gillian Linscott's failed attempt to think and talk like a 19th century London hansom driver. Lloyd Rose's critical essay, '100 Years of Sherlock Holmes' was provocative, for instance, stating the the Doyle's plots are the weakest part, where I often fell that the sometimes clever plots are what makes the story worth reading, He also discusses the many movie Holmes actors. Rathbone has his faults, but being prissy isn't one of them. The cocaine habit is given its inevitable coverage.

This was a good one. Mostly because all I remember about it was that it kinda introduced me to the concept of Sherlock Holmes romances.

Not a lot to get excited about in this anthology.

Good selection with some, Perry, Crider and Lovesley a cut above.½

I nodded off as he was talking about money with his mother...again.

I did love his non-Holmes short stories - [b:The Supernatural Tales of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|52678|The Supernatural Tales of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170391939s/52678.jpg|51379] is wonderful.

I am often disappointed by collections of Sherlock Holmes short stories. They often contain a number of stories that I do not consider worth of publication or not yet ready for publication. Many collections, including this one, are padded with Sherlockian essays. I like to ready essays as well but I don't like to mix them.

I have started looking at anthologies in a different manner. I now consider whether there is at least one story making the purchase of the book worth while. In this one there are 3: The Adventure of the Rara Avis (based on the Maltese Falcon), The Adventure of the Agitated Actress in which actor William Gillette must solve a mystery (with the constant chorus of "I am not Sherlock Holmes") and The Case of the Highland Hoax which is what Caleb Carr's Italian Secretary should have been like. Others have some good features and some poor features but those three alone justify the cost of the book.

I was disappointed by The Adventure of the Curious Canary. Why did Holmes and Watson stand by as the victim died? Why did Dr.Watson make no attempt to revive him? Elementary CPR was known in those days and for goodness sake Watson is a doctor!

The short version: not a bad collection of Sherlock Holmes tales. I've read a few better; I've read many, many worse! The writing is consistently good. Best of all, these tales are faithful to the character and the canon - you don't have to worry that Holmes will suddenly be revealed as a German spy, or a body snatcher, or gay. If that's good enough for you, don't bother to read on! Some may find my brief descriptions of each story useful, but mostly I include them because I have a notoriously poor memory and this is my way of recalling my impressions of each tale. (Just in case, I've been careful not to include any spoilers!)

The Man from Capetown (Stuart M. Kaminsky) entangles Holmes into a love triangle when a young woman asks him to convince her divorced husband not to seek vengeance against her intended. I suspect this tale appears first because Kaminsky does a competent job of mimicking both Doyle’s writing style and his method of plotting. Nothing brilliant, but a nice, comfortable read.

The Case of the Borderland Dandelions (Howard Engel) relates the classic tale of a wealthy older man, a young heir, and arsenic-laced tea. Alas, there’s no real mystery about who committed the crime, and the reveal hinges on that hoariest of mystery clichés, the “how would they have known ___ unless they were the murderer!” clue, to unmask the villain. Holmes deserves better.

The Siren of Sennen Cove (Peter Tremayne) starts off like a Scooby Doo mystery for adults (the siren referenced in the title is nekked! shocking!), but incorporates some interesting history about the ancient, wicked practice of wrecking (luring ships onto rocks so that they can be looted), which was informative and entertaining.

I’m sure I’ve encountered The Case of the Bloodless Sock (Anne Perry) in another collection, and I still don’t like it. Every respectable Holmes fan knows that Moriarty would never be caught dead doing his own dirty work.(That’s not a spoiler – the mystery is how, not who.)

The Adventure of the Anonymous Author (Edward Hoch) was, I thought, one of the weakest of the batch. The set-up strains credibility (Holmes tracks someone by following them back from the post office? pedestrian!), the solution is obvious, and much of the tale is told after the fact, so there’s almost no suspense.

The Case of the Vampire’s Mark (Bill Crider) features a guest appearance by Bram Stoker, and conveniently fails to reference the fact that Holmes has faced vampires once before, in The Case of the Sussex Vampire, a Doyle original. I was inclined to be skeptical, but the solution is clever, even if the culprit is obvious.

A Hansom for Mr. Holmes (Gillian Linscott) is a bit of a change, narrating one of Holmes’ little “adventures” from the perspective (first person) of the fellow driving his hansom cab. The adventure involves the attempted assassination of a foreign dignitary, and though there’s nothing wonderfully original about the clue that unlocks the mystery, there’s a bit with a dog that provides a touch of lighthearted fun.

It doesn’t matter that the solution to this one is painfully obvious, because The Case of the Arabian Knight (Loren Estleman) features no less a client than Sir Richard Burton, portrayed here as a combination of Lawrence of Arabia and Indiana Jones. I’m guessing Estleman recently read one of the definitive biographies of this astonishing individual, and couldn’t resist the urge to find a way to entangle him in a Holmes tale.

The Case of the Cheshire Cheese (Jon Breen) also takes the liberty of invoking a famous historical personage (the Great Lexiconographer, Samuel Johnson); unlike the aforementioned tale, however, the connection adds little interest to the tale. The solution relies on information the reader could not possibly possess and the exercise is entirely cerebral.

Darkest Gold (L.B. Greenwood) gets the award for pulling Holmes furthest from his usual orbit, dragging him all the way to darkest Africa in an adventure that involves pygmies, a legendary city of gold, a noble African explorer a la Livingston, disguises, dastardly bad guys, and danger. If all this sounds a little like an Indiana Jones adventure, that’s because that’s just how this reads. I like to think the man who authored The White Company would approve.

The Remarkable Worm (Carolyn Wheat) involves Holmes in the suspicious death of a wealthy, unpleasant old gentleman. The story is competent, but it’s the subplot involving Joseph Tussaud and the effort to immortalize a certain great detective in wax that makes this worth the read. (Be patient – the payoff comes at the end.)

Sidelights on Sherlock Holmes is by far the most entertaining essay in this collection – fitting, since it was penned by Doyle himself. In this piece, Doyle ruminates on the rather bewilderingly complex life of his “consulting detective” in literary pastiches, on the stage, and before the camera. Unless you’re a dedicated Sherlockian, much of this history is likely to be new to the reader. I especially enjoyed his comedic reaction to the ironic failure of the only lone stage play that he himself had a hand in writing.

In 100 Years of Sherlock Holmes (Lloyd Rose), we learn more about modern portrayals of Sherlock Holmes, with an emphasis on various literary and stage interpretations of Holmes’s famously elusive creation. Rose makes the argument that the reason Holmes remains compelling after so many decades is that Doyle wrote him that way – subject to interpretation but never to stereotype.

And Now, a Word From Arthur Conan Doyle (Jon Lellenberg) wraps up the volume with a short study on contributions by Doyle and Holmes to the modern lexicon. While no Shakespeare, it turns out Doyle did enrich the modern Oxford English Dictionary with such questionably useful words as snackle (to secure or make fast), snick (a sharp noise, a click), and snap (alertness, energy, vigor), among others.

Anthologies generally take longer for me to finish because the stories don't connect and there isn't that "I must find out what happens next" effect. This was an uneven anthology with generally good stories, but the ones that didn't ring true really threw me. There are fourteen stories, three essays, and an introduction. My least favorite was Daniel Stashower's "The Seven Walnuts" where Sherlock Holmes doesn't even appear. I like Houdini, but I felt cheated. On the other hand, Victoria Thompson's "The Minister's Missing Daughter" felt very Holmes-ish.

The final problem for me was the number of typographical issues in the Kindle edition. Words were run together; I suspect many had something to do with words that were hyphenated at the end of a line. I've seen the same problem when pulling text from a PDF into a text document. A spell check would have caught them, but obviously wasn't done.

If you like mysteries that involve Sherlock Holmes, I think you would find the book interesting. The stories are not pastiches, but have the tone of each individual author. Tackle it with an open mind and give it some leeway for the typos if you choose the Kindle version.½

After reading Arthur Conan Doyle's complete body of Sherlock Holmes stories, I was pleased to run across these recent stories written by devotees. They are written in Conan Doyle's style (more or less), and set in the same time period. Most are excellent, and save for occasional wider-ranging storylines, indistinguishable (to me, anyway) from Conan Doyle's work. Here we have the purported first meeting of Holmes with a fledgling Moriarty, some essays and reference material about the great detective, and a particularly creative story in which actors portraying Holmes and Watson in a play are called upon to solve a crime -- and do so, in a way which does credit to Holmes himself. An enjoyable read; I look forward to tracking down the first book in this series (this one is the second).

This is a collection of short stories written by contemporary authors featuring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed detective Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson. This is a much more enjoyable short story collection than many are, particularly than those in the mystery genre.

"The Watch Night Ball" by Anne Perry - A woman begs Holmes to prevent her sister from killing their father at Christmas. I guessed the ending of this one, but it was still a fun read.

"The Sleuth of Christmas Past" by Barbara Paul - A local chemist fears someone is robbing the charitable Christmas Fund. A young woman is suspicious of her fiance's recent actions. She calls upon Holmes for assistance. I enjoyed this story by what was a new-to-me author. I'll be looking for her other books.

"A Scandal in Winter" by Gillian Linscott - This story is told from the voice of a young girl who witnessed an accident the previous year at the Edelweiss. Those present the previous year have returned. Holmes & Watson are there too to investigate what occurred and to perhaps clear the deceased's wife of the popular belief that she was responsible for his death. This was the only story in the collection that was not narrated by Watson, and it really would have worked better from his voice.

"The Adventure in Border Country" by Gwen Moffat - A many from Cumberland hires Holmes to locate his neighbor's missing husband. An interesting puzzle with some psychological problems.

"The Adventure of the Three Ghosts" by Loren D. Estleman - Sherlock Holmes & Watson in a remade version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."

'The Adventure of the Canine Ventriloquist" by Jon L. Breen - A writer is tormented by a picture and a dog.

"The Adventure of the Man Who Never Laughed" by John H. Watson, M.D. - A woman wants her brother found. This one deals with mental health issues.

"The Yuletide Affair" by John Stoessel - Watson solves a case of his own involving a stabbing.

"The Adventure of the Christmas Tree" by William L. DeAndrea - A Scottish Duke's forester tells Holmes and Watson about a marked tree's disappearance and reappearance. He seeks their helping in explaining it.

"The Adventure of the Christmas Ghost" by Bill Crider - Ebenezer Scrooge's nephew sees ghosts. Holmes resolves the reason behind the sightings for Ebenezer and for his nephew.

"The Thief of the Twelfth Night" by Carole Nelson Douglas - An emerald went missing some years ago. Holmes makes Watson guess what happened.

"The Italian Sherlock Holmes" by Reginald Hill - Holmes listens to an Italian man deduce the guilt of a man.

"The Christmas Client" by Edward D. Hoch - Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) is being blackmailed and seeks Holmes' assistance. I enjoyed this one.

"The Adventure of the Angel's Trumpet" by Carolyn Wheat - Holmes helps an opponent defend a woman accused of murdering her grandfather.

I think that my favorite is probably "The Sleuth of Christmas Past."

Holmesian short stories by modern authors

Over the years, many writers of crime fiction have penned short stories involving Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Dr. Watson. The present collection consists of 12 stories written in 2001. I found the selections herein disappointing – dull, forgettable, and not worthy of a second reading. In one (“Darkest Gold”) Holmes and Watson travel to Africa, in a tale that is downright silly and implausible. Another (“The Case of the Bloodless Sock”) showed promise due to appearance of Prof. Moriarty, but the story line is too far- fetched and the “detecting” is weak.

The best selection by far is by Conan Doyle himself, who gives a humorous, self- effacing perspective on his literary creations. Lloyd Rose's historical essay “100 Years of Sherlock Holmes" is also worthwhile.
However, in all other respects, I found this a weak selection of stories.

On a scale of zero to five stars, here is how I ranked them:

"The Man from Capetown" (Stuart M. Kaminsky) – 2*
"The Case of the Borderland Dandelions" (Howard Engel) – 2.5*
"The Siren of Sennen Cove" (Peter Tremayne) – 1*
"The Case of the Bloodless Sock" (Anne Perry) – 1.5*
"The Adventure of the Anonymous Author" (Edward D. Hoch) – 2*
"The Case of the Vampire's Mark" (Bill Crider) – 2*
"A Hansom for Mr. Holmes" (Gillian Linscott) – 2*
"The Adventure of the Arabian Knight" (Loren D. Estleman) – 2*
"The Adventure of the Cheshire Cheese" (Jon L. Breen) – 1*
"Darkest Gold" (L.B. Greenwood) – 0 *
"The Remarkable Worm" (Carolyn Wheat) – 1*
"Sidelights on Sherlock Holmes" (Arthur Conan Doyle) – 5*
“100 Years of Sherlock Holmes" (Lloyd Rose) – 3*
"And Now, a Word from Arthur Conan Doyle" (Jon L. Lellenberg) – 2*½

I like Christmas stories and I like Sherlock Holmes so this seemed like a collection I would enjoy. My instinct was right. As with all collections, some stories were better than others, but all were good. My favorite story in the collection is probably “The Adventure of the Canine Ventriloquist” by Jon L. Breen. It's a story about a young man who had everything going for him the previous Christmas but whose fortune had steadily declined during the year as he experienced some unexplained phenomena that raised questions about his mental state. I also liked “A Scandal in Winter”, narrated by a young girl who was the only witness to a murder that had taken place a year earlier at the same hotel. The only mystery with a predictable solution was the first one in the collection, written by Anne Perry. I like to read mystery short story collections occasionally to discover new authors whose books I might enjoy. This collection has added a few more names to my list of authors to try.

So a Christmas themed Sherlock Holmes anthology, with Anne Perry listed as the headliner.

The Anne Perry story has the 'Wrong Voice' and the wrong feel. The rest of the anthology is a mixed bag, including a couple of Charles Dickens crossover stories (one of which I could have done without)

As ever with anthologies about a third of the stories are good, a third average, and the remaining third are not worth it.

3.5 Stars (3.75 Stars if you are a Holmes fan and reading it at Christmas)

This one was overall quite good. It included a number of authors, some of whom capture the spirit of Holmes, as well as his twists and turns. It seemed familiar, though I couldn't predict what the next page would bring. There were a couple of bonuses - one was a bit by Conan Doyle about Holmes, and an essay about Holmes' presence in media through the years. Another review has phrased it wonderfully as "a quite passable anthology".

A treasure chest of short stories and interesting knowledge about Sherlock Holmes. Each perfectly packaged story is a thought evoking treat. This is a must read for those who can't get enough of Holmes and Watson.

nice to read in July, when you get a great desire for snow and caroling

Substance: The individual stories varied in quality, although all were acceptable for Sherlock fanfic. Several authors made use of Dickens' "Christmas Carol," and others of Sigmund Freud.

It has probably been a decade since I read through all of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories so it was nice to revisit the character in the newly released Sherlock Holmes in America. With a foreward by Daniel Stashower and also including a dinner speech about America from Conan Doyle himself, this collection of short stories about Holmes is literally all over the map ... of America.

Some stories in this book feature Holmes by himself, some with Watson, a couple with his brother Mycroft and one story even stars a young Harry Houdini picturing himself as Sherlock Holmes. The stories take place in such varied places as San Diego, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Boston. Some of the stories are based on previously written Holmes stories and others are completely new. Most of the mysteries are somewhat simple but the characters are complex and interesting. Even if you haven't read any Sherlock Holmes stories before, this book stands alone fairly well.

http://webereading.com/2009/04/new-release-sherlock-holmes-in-america.html

I enjoyed this collection of short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, especially the ones "The Siren of Sennen Cove" and "A Hansom for Mr. Holmes". I also liked the essay "100 Years of Sherlock Holmes" which looked at how the Holmes character has been portrayed over the years on stage and film.

sherlock holmes, and martin h. greenberg what can i say! great

Short stories in the style of Sherlock Holmes:

- "The Man from Capetown" by Stuart M. Kaminsky
- "The Case of the Borderland Dandelions" by Howard Engel
- "The Siren of Sennen Cove" by Peter Tremayne
- "The Case of the Bloodless Sock" by Anne Perry
- "The Adventure of the Anonymous Author" by Edward D. Hoch
- "The Case of the Vampire's Mark" by Bill Crider
- "A Hansom for Mr. Holmes" by Gillian Linscott
- "The Adventure of the Arabian Knight" by Lren D. Estleman
- "The Adventure of the Cheshire Cheese" by Jon L. Breen
- "Darkest Gold" by L.B. Greenwood
- "The Remarkable Worm" by Carolyn Wheat
- "Sidelights on Sherlock Holmes" by Lloyd Rose
- "And Now, a Word from Arthur Conan Doyle" by Jon L. Lellenberg

takes the BSI through the war years (Autumn 1943 to June 1947) with the explosion of scion society activity after the publication of Profile by Gaslight and the founding of The Baker Street Journal.

brought the BSI into the war years, as Edgar W. Smith made it into a permanent landmark on the literary scene, new scion societies appeared in Chicago and elsewhere, and the feud with the Conan Doyle Estate broke out.

covers the origins, founding, and early development of the BSI, with chapters about Christopher Morley, the ways in which Baker Street Irregularity grew, and the BSI’s earliest scion societies, The Five Orange Pips of New York and The Speckled Band of Boston.