FFB: The New Adventures of Sherlock Homes
It's a great time to be Sherlock Holmes. Recent years have seen the hit TV series, Sherlock, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson, the movie franchise with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, and new books by Anthony Horowitz, House of Silk (the first Holmes novel approved by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate in the past 125 years) and its sequel, Moriarty. Holmes pastiche short stories have long been popular, including the anthologies, A Study In Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger; Sherlock Holmes in America: 14 Original Stories by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon L. Lellenberg, et al; and many many more (especially now that the Holmes characters from the books and stories published prior to 1923 are in the public domain).
An earlier anthology of Holmes pastiches from 1987 was also authorized by the Conan Doyle estate, a centennial edition marking the 100th year since the appearance of Holmes in print. Titled The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, editors Martin H. Greenberg and Carol-Lynn Rössel Waugh collected new stories by John Lutz, Stuart Kaminsky, Gary Alan Ruse, Ed Hoch, Jon L. Breen, Micharl Harrison, Barry Jones, Joyce Harrison, Loren D. Estleman, Michael Gilbert, Dorothy B. Hughes, Peter Lovesey, Lillian de la Torre, Edward Wellen, and Stephen King.
Stories that capture the time period and style well are Barry Jones' "The Shadows on the Lawn" and Stuart Kaminsky's "The Final Toast," in which you get double Holmes, as the sleuth plays a Holmes lookalike in a plot of revenge. The more faithful to the actual Holmes canon are by Dorothy B. Hughes and Stephen King. The "muffin" of Hughes' story "Sherlock Holmes and the Muffin" refers to one of Mrs. Hudson's poor and illiterate girls who ends up helping Holmes solve a diamond robbery. "The Doctor's Case" by King is a brilliant locked-room mystery which is the only story Watson solved before Holmes did.
And if you're wondering how to go about writing your own Holmes-inspired story, Anthony Horowitz offers up "Ten Rules for Writing a Sherlock Holmes Novel."
