Steve Emecz's Blog: Musings of a Sherlockian Publisher, page 11

Philip K Jones reviews The 1895 Murder by Dan Andriacco

"This is the third in the author’s series featuring Jefferson Cody and Sebastian McCabe.   To my taste it seems the best in the series of four.  Events center around the wedding of Jeff Cody and Lynda Teal.  As is customary, we meet again with old acquaintances and run into a group of new ones.  This time we learn more about old friends and meet even more interesting new ones than is usual.

Although the upcoming wedding permeates the entire book, this is because the narrator is the groom.  He is, quite naturally, preoccupied with his bride-to-be and is only marginally aware of the mystery around him.  An old acquaintance of Professor McCabe has decided to resurrect the abandoned Odd Fellows Hall as the Lyceum Theater and to stage a play as its reopening extravaganza.  McCabe has volunteered to write a play for the opening and has adapted “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans” as the foundation of the play, “1895,” along with elements of “The Empty House” and other Canonical tales to round-out the script.  The story begins on opening night, which is two weeks before the wedding is supposed to take place.

Opening night jitters are everywhere and everyone is preoccupied.  A troubled young man, a protégé of Sister Mary Margaret McBride (Polly or “triple M”) helping as a stage hand, steps out for a forbidden smoke and finds a dead body.  Hetexts the Police Chief, who arrives with siren screaming to upset the audience at the end of the play.  Murder enters the scene and steals the show.  According to the Police Chief, when the text sender disappears during the crime scene investigation, he becomes the prime suspect.  Sister Polly protests and asks McCabe and Cody to find what really happened.

From this point on, suspects turn up everywhere, motives abound and no one is who or what they seem.  Jeff and Lynda stumble on to the solution at about the same time Sebastian manages to figure it out.  All in all, it is a good mystery, with many interesting, complex characters and a fun plot.”

The 1895 Murder is available from all good bookstores including in the USA  Amazon and Barnes and Noble, in the UK Waterstones and Amazon, and for everywhere else Book Depository who offer free worldwide delivery. In ebook format there is Kindle, Nook, iPad and Kobo.

Review of Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter

"Synopsis: The Dean of a Swiss university persuades Sherlock Holmes to investigate the background of a would-be lecturer. To Dr. Watson it seems a very humdrum commission - but who is the mysterious ‘Lieserl’? How does her existence threaten the ambitions of the technical assistant level III in Room 86 at the Federal Patents Office in Berne by the name of Albert Einstein? The assignment plunges Holmes and Watson into unfathomable Serbia to solve one of the intractable mysteries of the 20th Century. In Tim Symonds’ previous detective novels, Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer At Scotney Castle and Sherlock Holmes And The Case Of The Bulgarian Codex the author based pivotal historic facts and a principal character on real life. So too in this new mystery.

Critique: Once again author Tim Symonds does full and complete justice to the literary legacy that is Sherlock Holmes. Highly recommended for mystery fans in general, and Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts in particular, it should be noted that “Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter” is also available in a Kindle edition.”

Reviewed by Small Press Bookwatch, Midwest Book Review, James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief, March 2014

Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Amazon Kindle,  Kobo, Nook and Apple iBooks (iPad/iPhone).

Review of The Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore by Dan Andriacco

"All Sherlockians are intrigued by the titles of Watson’s unrecorded cases. They are also disappointed by Watson’s failure to flesh them out. In the "Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore" author Dan Andriacco gives the reader a modernist version of that story. Mr. Arthur James Phillimore, a multi-millionaire goes missing. The team of McCabe & Cody go searching for him. Along the way to solving this modern mystery, they encounter a Phillimore pastiche, a story-within-the -story, which fills in Watson’s lacuna.

In this smoothly written tale Andriacco does not imitate Doyle’s style at all. It takes place in our times. But his book is laced with numerous Sherlockian allusions and puns which will delight the reader. Andriacco’s style is decidedly non-Watsonian and this makes this tale all the more charming. This book is well worth a read”

Reviewed by Al Gregory

The Disappearance of Mr James Phillimore is available from all good bookstores including Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Nook and Apple iBooks(iPad/iPhone).

The Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews The Holmes Sutra

"Calvert Markham has provided the foreword for The Holmes Sutra: A Birthday Gift for Sherlock Holmes as He Turns 160 by Jayantika Ganguly (MX Publishing; www.mxpublishing.co.uk), a charming and entertaining collection of observations drawn from apocryphal sources as well as from the canon. I particularly like ‘Sherlock Holmes is more than just a man– he is a just man’ and ‘The canon is real and true –though not always accurate’. As an appendix there’s a questionnaire to enable you to gauge your Holmes Mania Quotient. (I apparently am ‘Holmesick’…)”

The Holmes Sutra is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository .

The Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews Sherlock Holmes and A Quantity of Debt by David Marcum

"David Marcum’s good collection The Papers of Sherlock Holmes has deservedly done well, and MX Publishing has taken the bold step of issuing his novel Sherlock Holmes & a Quantity of Debt as a hardback original (www.mxpublishing.co.uk). The title, taken fromGreat Expectations, hints at a Dickensian flavour in this account of the investigation of a crime apparently committed half a  century before. There’s a grand gothic atmosphere, and it’s a pleasure to find Inspector Alec MacDonald among the main characters.”

Sherlock Holmes and A Quantity of Debt is available from all good bookstores including  Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository. In ebook format it is in Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Nook and Apple iBooks(iPad/iPhone).

The Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews The Disappearance of Mr James Phillimore by Dan Andriacco

"Dan Andriacco’s new novel brings Sebastian McCabe, Jeff Cody and Lynda Teal from Erin, Ohio to London. McCabe has been challenged to a debate, Holmes vs Dupin; Jeff and Lynda are on their honeymoon, but they’re inevitably drawn in when a distinguished Holmesian collector disappears. His name is James Phillimore, and he vanishes in just the way that his fictional namesake did, stepping back into his house to retrieve his umbrella. Perhaps for the first time, Sebastian McCabe finds himself up against a truly deadly enemy, one who sees himself as a real-life Moriarty. The book actually gives us two separate mysteries on the same theme. Within the present-day narrative is a fine Sherlock Holmes pastiche, “The Magic Umbrella”, which may just be relevant to the disappearance of the real James Phillimore. And there’s a bonus: Jeff and Lynda spent the earlier part of their honeymoon in Rome, where Lynda solved the curious case of the Vatican Cameos. Dr Andriacco’s writing, as always, is witty and assured. Jeff, Lynda and Sebastian are people you’d truly like to meet."

The Disappearance of Mr James Phillimore is available from all good bookstores including Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Nook and Apple iBooks(iPad/iPhone).

Review of Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter

"There is a lot of interest in Sherlock Holmes currently, with the BBC’s television series Sherlock and the American CBS series Elementary drawing a new generation of television viewers into the classic characters of Holmes and Dr. Watson. I have seen a few episodes of both shows and while as entertaining as most any contemporary crime drama, both are set in the current-day and their characters, for those of us who have read the canonical Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detective stories, do little but carry on the names of the Conan Doyle heroes—especially in the American series where so many aspects of the original premise have been radically changed. Thus, when I had a novel sent to me for review for In Serbia that announced itself as a Sherlock Holmes mystery, I did roll my eyes a bit. My first thought actually was “can’t people leave the poor Sherlock and good Dr. Watson to rest already and create their own detectives for television and new books?”.

However, my initial concerns were without warrant: unlike these new television shows that rewrite Holmes as a contemporary crime fighter, the novel Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter is set in the early twentieth century and places the central characters much closer to the original circumstances that Conan Doyle devised for them in his own work. For me, even as a boy, much of the joy of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries was in the very fact that they were written in another time and set in that time: there was a grand sense of romance, integrity, and courage found in those books in good part because they represented what many consider to have been the apex of the British Empire. Conan Doyle’s characters have doubtlessly inspired many writers who have worked aspects of those characters into new concepts—the character of Dana Scully on the X-Files has been said to have been inspired by Watson, in example, as Scully is also a medical doctor and is skeptical of many of the ideas of her partner, Agent Fox Mulder. That is fine, to see other writers and film-makers thus inspired, but to remove the duo of Holmes and Watson from their original context is to me rather disturbing and also removes much of their real appeal as characters. Thankfully, the author of this novel, Tim Symonds, places his Holmes and Watson in a context that I could fully see Conan Doyle approving of and one that draws the reader into an exciting mystery.

What makes the Symonds’ book work is the author’s keen sense of timing and his expansive knowledge of history and period traditions and culture. What makes it both all the more exciting and of especial interest to readers of In Serbia is that it is in good part set in Serbia and follows an intriguing path of clues to Novi Sad. Symonds’ command of historical detail cannot be overstated: The man has been able to gather a wealth of compelling details about everything from restaurants of the period to the spectre of scarlet fever and weaves all of this into the narrative. While the novel is of course fiction, the supporting details when sourced from history are fully accurate and the reader will learn many fascinating things about England, Serbia, and the general state of life at the time just by reading this very engrossing mystery. This factor, for me as a journalist who has written about history and was educated at university in history, is quite spectacular. Very few writers of fiction attend to historical detail with such care. Symonds also is quite careful and attentive to remain faithful to Conan Doyle’s outlook and the traits he provided his key characters. Several of the canonical Conan Doyle Holmes mysteries are even referenced in the book itself and many of the aspects of language and circumstances found in this novel will be familiar to people who have read the original Conan Doyle stories. Symonds also researched Serbia quite well and is adept in bringing to life the pre-war Serbian countryside and aspects of folklore such as the rusalki—the ghostly female water nymphs—are incorporated into the narrative as unique, engaging, plot devices. Symonds’ knowledge of German academia in the early twentieth century also displays either a longstanding association with the same or else research at the very highest level of historiography. Through and through, no stone has been left unturned by the author in his quest to make every detail of the “real world” in this novel—the actual history that bookends it—as authentic and informed as possible. The fruit of this labor is a novel that shimmers with the sheer amount of learning and care for the powerful detail furnished it by its author.

As to the plot, the combination of Sherlock Holmes and Einstein at first struck me as a bit reaching, but it really works. Einstein obviously was one of the greatest thinkers and greatest men of the entire century and Holmes has been by tradition written a character on rare par in intellect with the great physicist. Einstein and the characters around him thereby provide the author with a great content of human psychology with which to build a mystery and Serbia is well-rendered in prose here, creating a setting that will seem exotic and compelling to those readers not familiar with it but just as enchanting to those of us who know and love Serbia well. Lieserl, Einstein’s daughter of the book’s title, provides a focus of mystery fitting for the world’s greatest detective: The basis in history for this mystery only makes it seem more vivid, more vital for Holmes to solve and more tangible to the reader. Symonds’ writing is in general fascinating and well-crafted though at points his narrative approach is a bit more old-fashioned than today’s mystery writers such as P.D. James—which is fine, given the historical setting and characters of this book. Indeed, I suspect if written with the terse flow of a modern detective novel this book could fail, but Symonds is perfectly able to capture the spirit and sense of Conan Doyle’s writing and build his own novel in a manner that makes it read nearly as if it came from Conan Doyle’s very own pen.

Any complaints? Well, perhaps the book could have been longer, and that isn’t just to say it was so good I didn’t want it to end, though it was in fact that good. It could have, despite its ample detail, in places benefited from additional explanation. Clearly the author had a wealth of research to draw from, and some scenes could have been fleshed out a bit more. Some of this is in nature also the personal views of what I think as a reader (as opposed to as a critic) a novel ideally ought to be, and as the book stands, it is clearly not lacking in the least. Indeed, for its incorporation of actual history and pithy detail I would even say it’s the finest historical mystery novel I’ve read since reading Peter Ackroyd’s seminal Hawksmoor, which is itself easily one of the greatest works of British literature of the 1980s. Tim Symonds’ take on Sherlock Holmes is a fine one, and one of very few worthy of Conan Doyle’s characters found in contemporary post-canonical writing concerning Holmes and Watson. Highly recommended.”

This review was published on the In Serbia website by Mike Walker.

Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, Watson’s Lounge and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Kobo,  Apple iBooks(iPad/iPhone).

Leading Scientist review’s Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter.

American scientist Frederic Golden wrote the famous article on Einstein for Time Magazine’s ‘Man of the Century’ edition, at the end of 1999. Who better then to review the new Sherlock Holmes novel that covers the controversial subject of his daughter.
“Thank you so much for sharing your latest Sherlock caper with me. A wonderful, page-flipping read. You’ve caught the Conan Doyle ambience and cadences beautifully. How did you ever manage to have Holmes and Watson riding in a tarantass -  a priceless touch? At times, I was sure I was back again in the old master of Baker Street’s literary hands. I don’t agree with your assessment of Mileva’s contribution to relativity - methinks it was slight. And, of course, there is no evidence of the dastardly deed (if in fact there was one). But a homicide, even if justified, is a neat, and maybe a necessary, prop for your Holmesian whodunit. So, misgivings aside, hooray to you for bringing back the great Sherlock and his faithful sidekick Watson. And, not incidentally, for taking me back to those exciting, youthful Saturday afternoons in the movie house watching Messrs Rathbone and Bruce, Hollywood’s best Holmes and Watson, at work. For this old geezer, that was an anti-aging pill, for sure. Keep up the splendid work.”

Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Kobo and Apple iBooks (iPad/iPhone).

The Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews ‘The Story and Script behind No Place Like Holmes’ and ‘Holmes in Time for Christmas’ by Ross K Foad

"The Story and the Scripts Behind No Place Like Holmes: Select Episode Scripts From The Hit Sherlock Holmes Web Drama Comedy by Ross K Foad. MX Publishing. 2012. 252pp.

At www.nplh.co.uk/ you’ll find No Place Like Holmes, a series of comedy-dramas written and directed by Ross K Foad (who also plays Sherlock Holmes), based on the premise that Holmes and Watson were frozen in a time-spell by the demonic Hugo Baskerville, emerging eventually in the year 2010. We witness them, as the website says, fighting both evil masterminds and modern appliances. The films — thirteen so far, plus three Mary Morstan Mysteries, two reminiscences from the Great Hiatus, and six miscellaneous shorts — are attracting an increasing and enthusiastic audience worldwide, people who will surely welcome The Story and the Scripts Behind No Place Like Holmes, which contains four full-length scripts plus the promos for the Great Sherlock Holmes Debate 3 and the Baker Street Babes’ Sherlopalooza, and an account of the curious birth and development of the series. Also available is Holmes in Time for Christmas (MX; 2013), a novel adapted from one of the Great Hiatus mysteries, involving Mycroft Holmes, Irene Adler and death in the festive season. Like the scripts and the films themselves, it’s clever, intelligent and funny.”

The Story and Script Behind No Place Like Holmes is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository .

Holmes in Time for Christmas is available from all good bookstores including  Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Amazon Kindle,  Kobo, Nook and Apple iBooks (iPad/iPhone).

The Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews Benedict Cumberbatch, in Transition: An Unauthorised Performance Biography

"Lynnette Porter is the editor of Sherlock Holmes for the 21st Century: Essays on New Adaptations. Here she surveys Cumberbatch’s career as an actor, touching on his extra-curricular life only to the extent that it influences his acting or is influenced by the transition from jobbing actor to star to celebrity. The facts are meticulously (but not tediously) referenced, and the writing is both literate and engaging. Sherlock is the turning-point, but it’s good to be reminded of the extent and importance of the actor’s career, before, during and after the breakthrough to stardom: acclaimed rôles in Rhinoceros and Hedda Gabler at the Royal Court, After the Dance at the Old Vic, and Frankenstein at the National Theatre; performances as Van Gogh and Stephen Hawking on television; leading parts inCopenhagen, Neverwhere and the continuing comedy series Cabin Pressure on radio; War Horse, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in the cinema, and his emergence as a real film star in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Benedict Cumberbatch is a great actor, unpretentious, honest and dedicated.”

Benedict Cumberbatch, In Transition is available from all good bookstores including in the USA Amazon, Barnes and Noble, in the UK Amazon, Waterstones, and for everywhere else Book Depository who offer free worldwide delivery. In ebook format there is Kindle, iPad, Kobo and Nook.