One Week Until ‘Great Warrior’ is Released

Great Warrior: The Sherlock Holmes Diaries 1901 is due to be released on 15 May 2024. This is the fourth in the Sherlock Holmes and Lady Beatrice series. This series is written in the form of Holmes’s own diaries, giving us a new insight into the character.

Sherlock Holmes has seen more violent death than most men, but this time it’s different. This time the victim is Meg, Mrs Hudson’s beloved niece.
Soon the detective discovers that Meg isn’t the only woman to die by this killer’s hand. There are others. All, like Meg, nurses recently home from South Africa where they served in the Second Boer War.
The investigation leads Holmes down many unexpected paths, from the streets of the most vulnerable to the halls of royalty and, ultimately, to a killer beyond reason or compassion.

Although the novel has not yet been released, it already has a five-star review. From Vincent G. at Reedsy:

Must read

The author parses out the action in a way that seems at first plain, however many readers might say it is highly descriptive clarity.

SYNOPSIS

Sherlock Holmes has seen more violent death than most men, but this time it’s different. This time the victim is Meg. Mrs Hudson’s beloved niece.

Soon the detective discovers that Meg isn’t the only woman to die by this killer’s hand. There are others. All, like Meg, nurses recently home from South Africa where they served in the Second Boer War.

The investigation leads Holmes down many unexpected paths, from the streets of the most vulnerable to the halls of royalty and, ultimately, to a killer beyond reason or compassion.

This is the fourth in the Sherlock Holmes and Lady Beatrice series. Taken from Holmes’s diaries they reveal secrets Dr Watson was never permitted to share.

Of the several MX Publishing anthologies and novels I reviewed, Great Warrior: The Sherlock Holmes Diaries, is the first to offer me a hero and cast of supporting characters I did not expect. Geri Schear, the author, moves away from Dr. Watson as narrator, women are more powerful and key to the plots. Most surprising of all, Holmes is married.

Beyond those matters, Schear’s narrative style comes across as fresh and more personable than in adventures told by Watson. She does not try to mimic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s voice. Instead, there Sherlock parses out the action in a way that seems at first plain, however many readers might say it is highly descriptive clarity:

I retired early, but found my sleep troubled by peculiar dreams. I do not recall many of the details now, but in one, I swam in a vividly blue sea. At some point I realised that it was not a sea at all, but methylene blue dye. Next came a waterfall of red water which, strangely, did not blend with the blue, but formed pools of red within the sea. Somewhere, I heard Mycroft’s voice saying, “That’s your problem, Sherlock. You are far too concerned with how things look, rather than how they are.” At that, I woke up, tired and perplexed, to see I had retired no more than thirty minutes earlier.

Women tend to be ancillary in most Holmes stories. They are villains or ingenue, and the closest Holmes ever came to affection for one was the former actress Irene Adler, introduced in Doyle’s 1891 novel, A Scandal in Bohemia. However, Great Warrior chronicles 1901, and the key female figure in the saga is Bea, chief aide to Mycroft Holmes. The character softens and opens Sherlock to social convention that culminates in an Easter “family dinner.” More than that, Mycroft credits her with easing his tensions.

After a tenuous beginning when the men in the office seemed unwilling to take her seriously, she has become their de facto leader. Not only does she serve as my primary assistant and takes many of the meetings that were eating into my time, but she serves as a stabilising force for the younger men.

Great Warrior: The Sherlock Holmes Diaries’ plot is woven in the solutions of two great mysteries that fans of the consulting detective will welcome. Watson is minimized. Lestrade is sidelined. Holmes is more humanized. 

Great Warrior: The Sherlock Holmes Diaries 1901 will be available on 15 May 2024 from MX Publishing and all the usual outlets.