Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, Volume 4

We remain indebted to the good people of Airship 27 for this book, which contains five crisp & enjoyable tales about the Great Detective.In “The Adventure of the Clockwork Courtesan” by I.A. Watson, genuine historical exotica and murky realpolitik mixes to give us a heady mixture.Aaron Smith’s “The Problem of the Coincidental Glance” is a breezy game of cat & mouse, which, regrettably, finishes too soon.Bradley H. Sinor, in his “The Adventure of the Black Katana”, gives us a witty & suspenseful account of things happening immediately after the Great Hiatus. Unfortunately, the Lovecraftian elements remain unexplored, and the story ends in a rather insipid manner when the antagonist falls flat in all senses.William R. Thinnes, in his “The Adventure of the Anonymous Heiress”, gives us a rather predictable mishmash created from “The Adventure of the Copper-Beeches” and “The Disappearance of Lady Francis Carfax”.Andrew Salmon’s “The Adventure of the Limehouse Werewolf” is one of the best stories of this book, and, despite being a grim tale of misery & murder, remains a pleasure to read.None of these stories try to replicate the voice of Sir ACD. Instead, they make very good use of the new pulp style, and in the process allows us to savour authentic Holmesian action against the proper background, but narrated in a fresh & fast manner.Recommended.

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Volume IVHolmes and Watson are back for five more exciting adventures from Airship 27!First out of the gate is a story by IA Watson: “The Adventure of the Clockwork Courtesan.”A wealthy man with a taste for clockwork automatons has purchased a new one, The Vienna Clockwork. A simulacrum of a courtesan, the mechanical lady plays a harp and a small bird moves along a rod. But the clockwork is stolen.Finding the thieves only deepens the mystery, as now the rich man is dead, apparently by the courtesan’s metal fan. In a story where nothing is quite what it seems, the reader is lead through a tangled web to truth behind the whole mess, with a bit of blurred fact at the end. Excellent!Moving along, the reader next dives into “The Problem of the Coincidental Glance,” by Aaron Smith. The entire case starts with something Sherlock Holmes has seen when he just happens to be at the window of 221B. He rushes out without speaking, and later returns to give Watson his sailing orders. What did Holmes see that sent him charging out of his own flat?This story does have an interesting twist, but I find it the weakest in this round of stories, maybe two and a half out of five at best.Third in this volume is “The Adventure of the Black Katana” by Bradley H Sinor.A friend and colleague of Doctor Watson comes to 221B with a problem. A rare sword, a two hundred year old katana made by master sword-smith Hiraru Takei has been stolen from Doctor Black’s house. The trail of the katana leads through blood and carnage as the thief turns murderer, and Doctor Black finds himself and his household targets for a man with smoldering hatred in his soul.The story is well thought out and rather well written. It has its rough patches, but is worth a solid four out of five. Incidentally, I wonder if the reader has caught the significance of the sword-master’s name? Nice move, Mr. Sinor!The next story in line is “the Affair of the Anonymous Heiress” by William Thinnes.A young woman arrives at 221B with a tale of woe concerning her father, who is apparently on his deathbed. Strange thing have being happening in the household, and a faithful servant has died from what seems to be poison, a cryptic utterance his dying words.Holmes must sort through the web of evidence to trap the mastermind behind it all. A great twist ending, and a wonderful story, which I think the best in this volume.The last tale is “The Adventure of the Limehouse Werewolf” by Andrew Salmon.London police officers are being killed in such a way as to suggest a werewolf may have murdered them. On the bodies of each of the murdered men a valuable oriental curio has been found. Each is also marked with identical tattoos, having served in the merchant marine prior to their career as policemen.Despite the description of a witness, Holmes is certain that the “werewolf” is not supernatural. Or is it? What did the policemen do to anger this killer? The twist ending to this story gives it a tie as best in the volume with the previous story. A very worthy addition to the world of Sherlock Holmes.The volume as a whole remains at five out of five, the last two stories making up for the weak second tale.Quoth the Raven…

In my library of Holmes/Watson pastiches (closing in on 300 volumes) understandably there will be varying levels of quality although, as I've noted elsewhere, the overall level tends to be pretty high. Some of those in the 'awesome' category are just good stories with Holmes/Watson simply being main characters. A change in main characters would not have lessened the quality of the yarn. At least probably not by much. Others are faithful to the style of Conan Doyle to the extent that they could have been included in the original stories that captivated me so long ago.This particular book, simply stated, is marvelous. Often when a compilation of stories from different writers, the quality will vary from story to story and, given different people wrote them, this is not only understandable but expected. This particular volume is an exception. These stories are all smokers. After finishing the book, my reaction was a heartfelt WOW!. The quality goes deeper. Each of the writers has managed to catch the nuances and subtleties Conan Doyle included in his original stories. Often that means some polish is lacking and the narrative may get a bit stilted but that keeps them real.I only recently became acquainted with Airship Publications. They are advertised as 'Pulp Fiction.' Take it from me, the writing quality is far above what you would expect when the term 'Pulp fiction' is raised. I mean, these people know what they are doing. I'm currently on Volume V and will double back and review the other ones shortly. This particular book I have placed into my category of books that were so good that I hated seeing that I was running out of pages. Whenever I see another edition, it will be simply go directly to shopping cart. Don't even read the review.