‘The Scrapbook of Sherlock Holmes’ reviewed
The Scrapbook of Sherlock Holmes by Archie Rushden is an inventive and enjoyable little collection of stories, the starting point behind them being a supposed recent discovery during building works at Charing Cross Station. These, as we are informed in the introduction, revealed a long bricked-up part of the left luggage office which was found to contain a wicker hamper bearing the date Nov 11 1918. Inside, among other things, was a leather attaché case embossed with the initials Dr J H W.
The quick-witted among you will already have detected whose case it was: none other, of course, than Sherlock Holmes’ faithful sidekick and memoirist, Dr John H Watson. No one will be surprised, moreover, to learn that the manuscript inside the case contained hitherto unknown accounts of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, ten in all.
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What is particularly engaging here are the ways Archie Rushden [right, looking suitably Edwardian] has woven into some of his stories references to existing tales. Thus the case of The Augean Stables is recounted by Holmes to Watson to pass the time while they are travelling by wagonette to confront Stapleton in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
I also enjoyed the author’s lively style and witty images, as exemplified in the following extract:
‘Not another word, Mrs Hope-Mapperley, ‘snarled the inspector, as he glanced around our room like a lion-tamer who has momentarily misplaced his lion, yet knows it to be somewhere at hand.’
If I have a quibble at all, it is that the stories are rather too short, but then of course it is always better to leave the readers wanting more rather than giving them too much.
‘The Scrapbook of Sherlock Holmes’ is available from Amazon in paperback or Kindle format.
Buy ‘Mrs Hudson Investigates’ at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mrs-Hudson-Investigates-Susan-Knight/dp/1787054845 or at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1787054845/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
Now also available on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Hudson-Investigates…/…/B081PDMJ9Z
