The Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes » (Large Prin)

Paul D. Gilbert is the author of The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes.

In the tradition of Holmes pastiche, travel to Baker Street to finally hear the full stories of The Baron Maupertius, The Cutter Alicia, The Remarkable Disappearance of James Phillimore, The Red Leech, The Aluminium Crutch, The Abominable Wife, and The Mumbling Duellist: Isadora Persano. What is the connection between an impoverished dowager, an attempt on Mycroft's life, and Holmes' deadliest adversary? Can Holmes discover if a ship really disappeared in a patch of mist or if his client's father is insane? Who or what is the red leech?

Publishers Weekly

British author Gilbert improves on the plotting and the Watsonian narrative voice in his second pastiche collection (after 2007's The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes). Each of the seven stories takes its inspiration from one of the tantalizing references in Doyle's Sherlock Holmes adventures to exploits Watson never got around to publishing, such as the disappearance of James Phillimore, who returned home for an umbrella and was never seen again. While the lead story, “Baron Maupertuis,” offers an anticlimactic ending to the sleuth's duel with Professor Moriarty, Gilbert hits his stride with the clever “Adventure of the Cutter Alicia,” in which a man is incarcerated for insanity after claiming to have viewed the vessel sail into a patch of mist and vanish. While not pitch-perfect like the work of Donald Thomas or Denis Smith, this is a solid and respectable addition to the ranks of faithful emulations of the Doyle originals. (Jan.)