Sons of Moriarty and More Stories of Sherlock Holmes

September 23, 2013
This solid anthology collects five previously published shorter Sherlock Holmes pastiches, plus a new novella from Estleman (The Perils of Sherlock Holmes). John Lutz’s suspenseful “The Infernal Machine,” in which Holmes tries to solve the murder of arms manufacturer Sir Clive Oldsbolt, nicely conveys the era when horseless carriage backfires sounded like shots from a Gatling gun. Lenore Carroll’s clever “Before the Adventures” depicts a meeting between Dr. Watson, recovering from his war injuries while living alone in London, and an observant stranger who foreshadows Sherlock Holmes. In Estleman’s eponymous novella, Magdalena Venucci, daughter of an assassin from Doyle’s “Six Napoleons,” wants to take her father’s remains back to Italy, despite Inspector Lestrade’s heated objections. Readers learn about the origins of the Mafia, its code of omerta (or silence), and its cruel extortion methods in this lively adventure set in London and New York. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary.

November 1, 2013
Doyle, Holmes, and Watson are no longer with us, but a century-full of writers have been doing their best to deal with our loss. Estleman puts together one of the best of the wish-it-were-so pastiche anthologies, corralling stories that have Holmes confronting the automobile, thwarting an apparent kidnap plot in Wyoming, andin Estleman's own novella-length contributionbattling the Black Hand. The problem in some of the stories is tone. What's the author's attitude toward his material? When we see Holmes striking a match on the seat of his pants, as in Estleman's Sons of Moriarty, or watch him sulk like a spoiled child as Watson disses his fiddle-playing in John Lutz's The Infernal Machine, we wonder how we're supposed to take it. Parody? Anne Perry's The Case of the Bloodless Sock describes Holmes as a miserable teenager with no explanation, leaving the reader twice-stranded. The best entry is Robert Fish's howlingly funny, The Adventure of the Double-Bogey Man, wherein Schlock Homes of Bagel Street is openly parodied. No tone problems here, and, oddly, it's the most affectionate entry.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)