A Study in Sherlock

Regular readers of this blog know that I love Sherlock Holmes (see for example, The Sherlockian).  When two of my favorite Sherlock Holmes authors/scholars teamed up to put together a new Sherlock Holmes anthology, I was extremely excited.  The book, A Study in Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon, edited by Leslie Klinger and Laurie King, is terrific and a must read for Holmes devotees.

Les Klinger is a Sherlock Holmes scholar extraordinaire.  Several years ago, he published  The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories and The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Novels.  The scholarship is amazing; the books are beautiful.  Laurie King picked up the Sherlock Holmes stories from Holmes' retirement and added a new, smart, spunky partner, Mary Russell, and started a wildly successful series.  The latest installment is The Pirate King.

King and Klinger rounded up some of the best, current mystery writer talents and asked them to write a story that is inspired by the Canon.  (A list of the contributors is below.)  The writers had a lot of license.  Some of the stories are classic pastiches (stories that pattern Doyle's style).  Some of the stories are set in modern times and only loosely (but faithfully) tie to the Canon.  One story is told in the form of a blog.  Another is set in Alaska.  There is even a graphic novel short story.

If you have not read Sherlock Holmes ever, I'd highly recommend that you do.  It is the foundation of all mysteries.  Holmes is the most recognizable character in Western literature (a pipe and a deerstalker, need I say more).  Even if you have not read what Sherlockian's affectionately call the Canon (the original short stories and the novels written by Doyle), this collection is excellent and fun to read.

The contributors (and links to their websites) are as follows:
Alan Bradley
Tony Broadbent
Jan Burke
Lionel Chetwynd
Lee Child
Colin Cotterill
Neil Gaiman
Laura Lippman
Gayle Lynds and John Sheldon
Phillip Margolin and Jerry Margolin
Margaret Maron
Thomas Perry
S. J. Rozan
Dana Stabenow
Charles Todd
Jackie Winspear

A link to the book's blog is here.  Happy reading.

A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley

A Red Herring Without Mustard, by Alan Bradley, is the third installment of Bradley's award winning Flavia de Luce series.   In 2007, Bradley won the Debut Dagger Award for the first novel in the series, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and thereafter won more than a dozen awards for the book.  The second installment was The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag.

The series is set in 1950 in an ancient manor house on the English countryside.  The stories are told by an eleven year old narrator, Flavia de Luce, a precocious, chatty child, who is an accomplished chemist and a fantastic story teller.  Flavia lives with her emotionally vacant father, her two teenage sisters (Feely and Daffy), the cook, Mrs. Mullet, Dogger, a war veteran/gardener/handyman, and Gladys, her bicycle.  Flavia also lives with the memory of her ancestors, particularly her deceased mother.  The cast is further supported by the local librarian, the inspector, the vicar and others.

In A Red Herring Without Mustard, a gypsy fortune-teller is savagely attacked, a local thief is murdered, a baby is missing and there is a fishy smell in the air.  Flavia sets out to solve it all, matching her skills against the local constabulary.

What makes this series enjoyable is Flavia.  Bradley, a 70 year old Sherlock Holmes scholar (in his book Ms. Holmes of Baker Street, he argued that Sherlock Holmes was really a woman), creates a fun and intelligent character. She is a mix of the sharp brilliance of Sherlock Holmes, the tenacity of Colombo and the cuteness of Punky Brewster.

Some have categorized this series as one for young adults.  The violence aside, Harry Potter was supposed to be for young adults too and millions of adults read and enjoyed him.

Recommendation: The Flavia series is fun and entertaining and will be enjoyed by Agatha Christie lovers. Of the three books, Sweetness is the best. It is hard to beat a great first encounter with such a memorable character.


The book trailer for Sweetness:

An interview with Bradley:

Review -- The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

Graham Moore's debut novel, The Sherlockian, was good for so many reasons.  Since I was a child, I have loved Sherlock Holmes.  As an adult, I found the world of Sherlock Holmes scholars in which Sherlock Holmes was real and the inconsistencies in the stories provide endless fodder for scholarly articles and debates.  Half of Moore's novel is set in the world of these obsessive scholars.  At a society meeting, a long lost diary of Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes) is discovered.  The man who has spent years trying to locate the diary is suddenly found dead on the eve of presenting his findings to the society.  The newest member of the society begins a Sherlock Holmes worthy search for the murderer.

In parallel, Moore tells us the story of a murder investigation conducted by Doyle himself with his sidekick, Dracula's creator, Bram Stoker.  Moore expertly sets this narrative in late Victorian Britain. 

In 2004, the New Yorker published an article about the mysterious death of a Sherlockian scholar, Richard Lancelyn Green.  Moore used that basic story to create the first part of his narrative.  One of the enjoyable parts of this book is how fact and fiction meld, which is exactly what happens in the world of Sherlock Holmes today.

As a Sherlock Holmes fan, I loved the book.  Moore faithfully references the Sherlock Holmes stories (also known as "The Canon") without shmaltzing up the book with all of Holmes' catch phrases. 

The book has appeal to any lover of mysteries, not just Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts.  It has garnered several terrific reviews already.  I am looking forward to Moore's next work.