Scan barcode
A review by rosseroo
In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon by Leslie S. Klinger, Laurie R. King
3.0
Firstly, I must establish that while I enjoy the Holmes stories, and related films, TV shows, etc., I am far from a completist or even particularly knowledgable about "the canon" of works. Instead, I enjoy dipping my toes into the large pool of pastiche from time to time, when I'm in the mood for something truly fluffy. This anthology is one such work, and careful attention must be paid to the "inspired by" part of the subtitle. The authors of the stories collected here are avowed Homes fans, and were given wide latitude to write stories informed by their love of the character, so don't pick this up expecting a lot of variations on Holmes and Watson (the latter is largely absent here).
And like most such anthologies, the quality varies wildly, from the quite good ,to stories I barely skimmed. For example, there's one written from the viewpoint of a horse that I skipped, and a sort of stream of I'm not sure what from from the typewriter of Harlan Ellison. Fortunately, there are plenty that are quite good entertainments to make up for the duds. I generally like Michael Conelly's LA books, and in "The Crooked Man," his most famous character, Harry Bosch, confronts a locked room death with the assistance of a Holmesian coroner. I've never read any of Jeffrey Deaver's bestselling thrillers, but I have to admit that his "Adventure of the Laughing Fisherman" was a clever work of misdirection. And unlike almost everyone else, I found the retelling of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" in the form of Facebook posts to be amusing. Cornelia Funke's "Lost Boys" was an interesting riff on the Baker Street Irregulars and easily the darkest part of the book. Probably my favorite of the book was John Lescroat's "Dunkirk," which has an incognito Holmes helping to crew one of the small craft enlisted in the Dunkirk evacuation during WWII.
And like most such anthologies, the quality varies wildly, from the quite good ,to stories I barely skimmed. For example, there's one written from the viewpoint of a horse that I skipped, and a sort of stream of I'm not sure what from from the typewriter of Harlan Ellison. Fortunately, there are plenty that are quite good entertainments to make up for the duds. I generally like Michael Conelly's LA books, and in "The Crooked Man," his most famous character, Harry Bosch, confronts a locked room death with the assistance of a Holmesian coroner. I've never read any of Jeffrey Deaver's bestselling thrillers, but I have to admit that his "Adventure of the Laughing Fisherman" was a clever work of misdirection. And unlike almost everyone else, I found the retelling of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" in the form of Facebook posts to be amusing. Cornelia Funke's "Lost Boys" was an interesting riff on the Baker Street Irregulars and easily the darkest part of the book. Probably my favorite of the book was John Lescroat's "Dunkirk," which has an incognito Holmes helping to crew one of the small craft enlisted in the Dunkirk evacuation during WWII.