The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [299]
Thomson June Holmes and Watson. London, Constable, 1995. A well considered biography of the duo based solely on the writings of Watson.
Whitaker, Arthur. “The Case of the Man Who Was Wanted”, Cosmpolitan, August 1948; also reprinted as “The Adventure of the Sheffield Banker”. A story once mistakenly believed to have been by Conan Doyle but which is clearly apocryphal.
Williamson, J.N. (editor). The Illustrious Client’s Case-Book (edited with H.B. Williams), Indianapolis, Illustrious Clients, 1948, and The Illustrious Client’s Second Case-Book, Indianapolis, Illustrious Clients, 1949. A collection of pastiches of spurious authenticity. Include recreations of “The Terrible Death of Crosby the Banker” and “The Adventure of the Politician, the Lighthouse, and the Trained Cormorant.”
Wilson, Alan. “The Adventure of the Tired Captain”, Sherlock Holmes Journal, Winter 1958–Spring 1959; and “The Adventure of the Paradol Chamber”, Sherlock Holmes Journal, Spring–Winter 1961. Two faithful and possibly authentic recreations of unrecorded cases.
Wolfe, Sebastian (editor). The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, London, Xanadu, 1989. Anthology of fourteen apocryphal pastiches, parodies and spoofs. All are reprints except “The Affair of the Midnight Midget” by Ardath Mayhar.
The Contributors
Stephen Baxter, “The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor“. Since his first novel, Raft, in 1991, Stephen Baxter (b. 1957) has established himself in the front rank of British writers of science fiction. His related novels include Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring and the collection Vacuum Diagrams. One of his most popular books was The Time Ships, a sequel to H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine and it is Baxter’s interest in Wells that resulted in his story in this collection, which is a fully fledged murder mystery and not science fiction.
John Betancourt, “The Adventure of the Amateur Mendicant Society“. John Betancourt (b. 1963) is an American author and publisher whose Wildside Press is dedicated to producing quality books of fantasy and supernatural fiction. His own books have been mostly science fiction or fantasy, though Rememory contained a strong mystery element. Other novels include Rogue Pirate, The Blind Archer and Johnny Zed, plus the story collection Slab’s Tavern and Other Uncanny Tales. He is currently working on a series of fantastic adventure novels featuring the Greek hero Hercules, starting with The Wrath of Poseidon.
Eric Brown, “The Vanishing of the Atkinsons“. Brown (b. 1960) is best known for his science fiction, much of which has appeared in the British magazine Interzone. Several of his best stories have been collected as The Time-Lapsed Man and Blue Shifting. His novels include Meridian Days and Engineman.
Simon Clark, “The Adventure of the Fallen Star“. Clark (b. 1958) has rapidly established himself as a writer of serious horror novels, the books exploring much deeper aspects of the human psyche than the titles – Nailed by the Heart, Blood Crazy, Darker and King Blood – convey. Born and bred in Yorkshire where he still lives with his wife and two children, Clark worked for several years in local government before becoming a full-time writer in 1993.
Basil Copper, “The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter“. Copper (b. 1924) is a prolific writer of thrillers and supernatural fiction. He is as popular amongst devotees of hard-boiled American detective fiction, with his long-running Mike Faraday series of novels, as he is amongst the gothic-horror brigade with his excellent brooding novels Necropolis and The Black Death. Closer to Holmes, Copper continued the adventures of Solar Pons started by August Derleth in 1929 in emulation of Sherlock Holmes. Copper’s Pons is, if anything, even closer to the character of Holmes, perhaps because Copper has a deeper affinity with the fogbound streets of Victorian London. His Pons collections are The Dossier of Solar Pons, The Further Adventures of Solar Pons, The Secret Files of Solar Pons, Some Uncollected Cases of Solar