The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes

By Donald Serrell Thomas

Book Overview

The premise: Sherlock Holmes did not in fact retire in 1903 to a quiet life of beekeeping in Sussex, but instead worked covertly as the consulting detective in some of the Edwardian era's most baffling, actual cases.The result: A collection of tales that compellingly weds fiction to history, as Baker Street's famous resident and his cohort Dr. Watson investigate seven of the most celebrated mysteries in the annals of true crime, from the grisly murder of a prostitute to the alleged bigamy of King George V. With Watson grumbling all the way, he and Holmes travel to Paris to vindicate Captain Dreyfus and become embroiled in the suspicious death of the French president Faure. They book passage to Yokohama, too, to solve a mystifying case of what appears to be arsenic poisoning, while closer to home they investigate the 1907 theft of the Irish crown jewels. And on at least one occasion, the formidable ratiocinative powers of the eminent Holmes save not only the day but the monarchy, government, and nation as well.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786706368
• ISBN13: 9780786706365
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Length: 343 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Sherlock in 'real' time

In this collection of new stories, author Donald Thomas has given tribute to Holmes and Watson in what has become a fairly traditional manner - by writing new stories of adventures involving the detective and his companion. There are several different styles of this kind of honour; some authors pick up on details from canonical stories (there are 56 short stories and four novels penned by Conan Doyle); some invent entirely new fictional stories; then there is a third style, in which the author grafts Holmes and Watson onto historical or nearly historical situations. This last method was employed in film-making during World War II, when Holmes was engaged in fighting the Nazi powers on behalf of Britain. Thomas keeps the stories he has developed within the typical timeframe of Holmes' canonical life - late Victorian and Edwardian times. In 'The Ghost in the Machine', the case turns on an error of forensic investigation. In fact, Conan Doyle himself was once enlisted to try to clear a man using Holmesian methodology - this combines a real-life case with another real-life application and overlays the fictional detective on top of it. The other stories in the collection are similarly based on actual historical events - this a sort of a 'what if' collection, speculating what might have happened had Holmes and Watson been available to do their investigation. The stories are engaging, but have more to do with presenting a history than with really creating a new Holmesian addition. The stories are reasonably well written, but lack the style of Conan Doyle to the extent that even a good photocopy lacks the authenticity of the original. This book is a must for those who want to be widely read and kept up with the games that are afoot in the continuing development of Holmesian lore. Fans who come to read this without the expectation that these are canonical or of the same quality as the better of Conan Doyle's pieces will not be disappointed.