Jon Lellenberg (1946–2021)

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less