Customer Reviews

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: After Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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3 star:		(2)
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This is a nice collection of eleven Sherlock Holmes short stories by authors other than Arthur Conan Doyle. They have been well chosen and, on the whole, manage to capture the atmosphere of the originals.

The book includes an interesting, well researched introduction which outlines how each story came to be written, and why it has been included in this collection.

The selections include "The Adventure of The Sheffield Banker" (thought at one time to be a long lost story by Conan Doyle himelf), and "The Adventure of Arnsworth Castle" which was penned by the creator's son; Adrian Conan Doyle.

In my opinion it's a good read - although the quality of the stories does vary quite a bit.

If you've not read any "Sherlock Holmes" before, my advice is to start with the originals - then get this book afterwards. However, it should be considered an absolute must for any true whose fan chomping-at-the-bit to read more of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.

Mph.

Conan Doyle made no secrets of his indifference to his most famous creation (and one of the most famous characters ever). When he 'killed' Holmes in a fight with Moriarty he grudgingly brought him back to due public demand. After he closed the book on Holmes for good the fans took it upon themselves to continue series, for better or worse, talent or no talent.

There have been zillions of non-canon Holmes fiction over the years. This Penguin publication collects 11 of the older stories from various early decades of the 20th century. They are as follows:

The Adventure in the First Class Carriage - Ronald A. Knox

A brief story in which Holmes is hired to unravel a mystery of an employer with deep debts who has been leaving cryptic messages. A quick trip to Guiseborough on the train soon sorts it out. Not very exciting, and is too short for any real mystery to develop.

The Adventure of the Sheffield Banker - Arthur Whitaker

Watson's wife is on holiday in Switzerland so he occupies his time accompanying Holmes in finding a crook who has been pulling scams with bogus cheques. It's actually a good story until the end in which I can't decide if it's badly written or if the crook is a total idiot.

The Adventure of the Unique Hamlet - Vincent Starrett

A book collector has lost a rare Shakespeare manuscript and comes to Holmes for help. They set off for Walton-on-Walton on the train and uncover a tame deception. Not the best by far, but adequate enough.

The Adventure of the Marked Man - Stuart Palmer

Holmes and Watson go off to Cornwall to help a man who believes he has been marked for death. It's a good story, but is resolved a little to quick. Nice atmsophere though, even it doesn't last.

The Adventure of the Megatherium Thefts - S.C. Roberts

Another missing book story has Holmes and Watson visit a stuffy gentleman's club where someone has been helping themselves to the library. It's very brief. So brief in fact that there's not really much to critique.

The Adventure of the Trained Cormorant - W.R. Duncan Macmillan

Set on the Western Isles, this mystery has Holmes and Watson hired to find missing jewellery aboard a rascally upstart's yacht. It has a very muddled, tedious narrative and a low-watt resolution. Not the best story in the bunch.

The Adventure of Arnsworth Castle - Adrian Conan Doyle

Some nobleman has his head lopped off in a fictional castle so Holmes and Watson are called to investigate despite the local bobbies not being keen on him. It ends as soon as it starts and never really gives itself a chance to build on the snowy atmosphere. Quite a downbeat final paragraph too.

The Adventure of the Tired Captain - Alan Wilson

Some old codger is acting up and his family think he's going senile. When Holmes investigates he discovers that it's merely to hide a dull smuggling plot.

The Adventure of the Green Empress - F. P. Cille

A rare and priceless gem is purloined by an unlikely suspect. Holmes and Watson are called out to get to the bottom of it. Nothing new here.

The Adventure of the Purple Hand - D. O. Smith

The longest story in the collection, at 40 pages, and, for the most part, the best. An honest businessman suffering from a lingering spell of malaria asks Holmes to investigate his wife's strange affair with the lazy gardener, the 6-fingered hand-prints on his wall, and the figure lurking in his garden at night. The length gives the story the chance to build, but sadly ALL of it is once more delivered in dialogue and exposition with no as-it-happens mystery-solving or detecting. Plus, the final explanation is pulled-in from so far afield the writer might as well have blamed Doctor Frankenstein or Darth Vader.

The Adventure of Hillerman Hall - Julian Symons

The only story in this collection that deviates from the norm. It is told in the standard 3rd person and does not feature Watson in any way. It's also the only one that is set outside of the general 1890-ish timeline, taking place after His Last Bow (which is also mentioned in a nice meta-fictional reference) when Holmes has retired to Sussex. The story is only 19 pages and concerns a naïve young woman who has fallen victim to a con man. It's concise and to the point, but hardly memorable.

Make no mistake, this is pure fan fiction. There are introductions to each story printed at the beginning of the book giving background info on the author and story, but I recommend that you leave these until after you have read them.

Bit of a tricky one to review, and I'm still not certain as to the appropriate star rating. This book should perhaps be regarded as two seperate things, first - and perhaps foremost - as a worthwhile literary project, and second as a straightforward anthology of short stories.
In its first capacity I think the book succeeds admirably, bringing together many of the better known Holmes pastiches and providing a commendable amount of background information on how and when each individual story came to be written. This is all covered in the lengthy but highly readable introduction, which also contains snippets of interesting Holmes/Doyle trivia and history without boring the reader.
So far so good, and all the above would merit a four star rating if it weren't for the actual stories themselves which, in my honest opinion, vary in quality from not bad (a tiny minority) through mediocre to downright awful. As I say, this is only my opinion and YMMV, but I repeatedly found myself really hoping that the next story would be an improvement on the one I was reading, and in this I was usually disappointed.
Although I have read and enjoyed all Conan Doyle's original short stories I should explain that I am no fanatical devotee, so my criticism of this collection is not "cover aversion syndrome", or a knee-jerk objection to other writers having a bash. It's just that most of these stories are simply poor. Plot holes and shallow storylines, cardboard characterisations, unconvincing dialogue and shockingly contrived solutions are all here in depressing abundance.
I almost wish I had stopped reading after the introduction, because far from rekindling my enjoyment most of these stories just irritated me, but to be fair one or two aren't bad, and I guess it was at least interesting to compare all the stories and their authors' styles with each other, as well as with the originals.