Because we could never guarantee that we’ve collected every new title in a year featuring Sherlock Holmes and Co., here’s a partial roundup of new takes on Conan Doyle’s classic characters (plus a few cameos from Conan Doyle himself). The art of the Sherlock pastiche is alive and well!
Claire O’Dell, A Study in Honor (HarperVoyager)
Claire O’Dell’s A Study in Honor is one of the most creative reimaginings of Sherlock and Watson we’ve ever seen. Dr. Janet Watson, recently returned from the front lines of a future civil war and newly fitted with a bionic arm, teams up with the mysterious and powerful Sara Holmes to investigate strange deaths among her fellow veterans. Here, Claire O’Dell rounds up her favorite science fiction crossover mysteries.
H. B. Lyle, The Red Ribbon (Quercus)
This is the second in H. B. Lyle’s Irregulars series, following Wiggins, the captain of Sherlock’s helpful urchins, as an adult in the employ of a fledgling secret service beset by German and Russian spies in Edwardian England. Like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Lyle’s work places a minor character from another tale center-stage in his own, yet unlike the ill-fated friends of Hamlet, Wiggins is bound to come out on top.
A Knife in the Fog, Bradley Harper (Seventh Street)
A Knife in the Fog features fictionalized versions of Arthur Conan Doyle and suffragette Margaret Harkness investigating crimes in the East End. Harper’s well-researched historical novel takes us into the complex and teeming neighborhood of Whitechapel in the time of Jack the Ripper. You can read an excerpt here.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse, Mycroft and Sherlock (Titan Books)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has oft-credited his athletic prowess to his Sherlockian inspirations, and made waves with his mystery debut a few years ago in which he reimagined Mycroft Holmes as a swashbuckling figure ready to fight for justice and solve mysteries the world over. Abdul-Jabbar’s vision of Mycroft returns in a new adventure, this time with his famous brother in tow. You can read an interview with Abdul-Jabbar here.
Sherry Thomas, The Hollow of Fear (Berkley)
The Hollow of Fear is Sherry Thomas’ third work to feature Charlotte Holmes, the well-dressed gourmand detective who goes by the name of “Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective” to hide her gender. Most enjoyable on our end is the Thomas’s willingness to chip away at Sherlock’s puritanical fanaticism in favor of a woman who is not afraid to indulge. In this latest in the series, Charlotte must solve the murder of a friend’s estranged wife and clear her friend’s name of suspicion (while taking on a few side cases to pay the bills). Here, Sherry Thomas looks at the many possibilities of the Sherlockian pastiche.
Laurie R. King, Island of the Mad (Bantam)
Island of the Mad, Laurie R. King’s latest Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mystery, follows the two as they head to Italy in order to track down a friend’s wayward aunt, escaped from Bedlam. While they enjoy their visit to Venice, encountering such figures as Cole Porter, the working vacation is marred by the evidence of Mussolini’s growing power. Here, Laurie R. King writes about historical fiction as both a window to the past and a mirror to the present. You can read an excerpt from Island of the Mad here.
James Lovegrove, The Cthulhu Casebooks (Titan Books)
The Cthulhu Casebooks “posits that the canonical Holmes adventures we all know about through Dr Watson’s writings are a fraud, disguising an altogether more unsettling truth. Holmes’s entire career…was actually spent tackling threats from other dimensions and all-powerful beings from beyond space and time, at the cost of his health and indeed his sanity.” In other words, this series explores what happens when the ultimate symbol of rationality comes up against the irrational, unspeakable horrors of the deeps. Here, Lovegrove rounds up the best Sherlockian encounters with the supernatural.
For the Sake of the Game, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie Klinger (Pegasus)
Laurie R. King and Leslie Klinger continue to breathe new life into Sherlockian tales with a new volume of short stories inspired by Conan Doyle’s classic works, some of which only recently entered public domain. Their latest features original tales from Rhys Bowen, Reed Farrel Coleman, Gregg Hurwitz, and many more.
Margalit Fox, Conan Doyle for the Defense (Random House)
Arthur Conan Doyle has long be renowned for his creation of the iconic Sherlock Holmes, and Conan Doyle’s own life is well-trodden territory in the land of biographies—there’s even microbiographies such as Through a Glass Darkly, a heartbreaking history of Conan Doyle’s obsession with seances after his son’s death in WWI (and not the only work to explore Conan Doyle’s connection with Houdini and seance culture). Yet until now, Conan Doyle’s part in defending a Jewish immigrant wrongfully accused of murder in 1908 Glasgow had yet to be told. Margalit Fox’s Conan Doyle for the Defense is both a rare tale of logic in the face of prejudice and indifference, and the perfect narrative for our time. You can read an article by Margalit Fox on why the case was so long forgotten here.
