The Scroll of the Dead: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure

Sherlock Holmes Adventures #3

by David Stuart Davies

Holmes attends a seance to unmask an impostor posing as a medium, Sebastian Melmoth, a man hell-bent on obtaining immortality after the discovery of an ancient Egyptian papyrus. It is up to Holmes and Watson tostop him and avert disaster... In this fast-paced adventure, the action moves from London to the picturesque Lake District as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson once more battle with the forces ofevil. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's timeless creation returns in a new series of handsomely designed detective stories. From the earliest days of Holmes' career to hisastonishing encounters with Martian invaders, the Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds' greatest detective.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Detective, Historical Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Thriller

Paperback

First published July 1, 1998

About the author

David Stuart Davies was a British writer. He worked as a teacher of English before becoming a full-time editor, writer, and playwright. Davies wrote extensively about Sherlock Holmes, both fiction and non-fiction. He was the editor of Red Herrings, the monthly in-house publication of the Crime Writers' Association, and a member of The Baker Street Irregulars and the Detection Club.

Reviews

[مي مجدي · Rating 3 out of 5]

عادة لا أميل لأعمال الجريمة، ولكن تعتبر مغامرات شارلوك هولمز الأشهر والأكثر صيتا على مستوي العالم، هذه مغامرة يحاول فيها هولمز فك لغز سرقة لفافة الموتي من المتحف البريطاني من جناح الآثار المصرية، بمعاونة صديقه ومساعده واطسون، قصة مسيلة تنتهي منها في بعض ساعات، ورغم أنها مسلية إلا أن بها درس أخلاقي عن الموت والحياة، وأن الإنسان مهما حاول صراع الموت وإيقاف حدوثه فإنما دائما سيبوء بالفشل، لأنه ببساطة قوة أكبر من احتماله ومقدرته على التغير.

الترجمة جيدة جدا

[Stephen Robert Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Egyptian religion believed that through the power of written word the dead could return. Here we have one such a hidden map stolen that leads to the Scroll of the dead.
This is lot like Pyramids of Mars I half expected Tom Baker & Sarah Jane Smith to pop up or the Tardis to appear
It may to Dr Watson sound insane but museum night watchman's dead body is no laughing matter for Holmes .
In the wrong hands could the scrolls work?
Immortality for an evil mad man .

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably Davies’ best Holmes novel. That isn’t really saying very much. However, this had a fairly coherent plot and didn’t resort to magic for the solution, so I consider it a win.

[نورا ناجي · Rating 5 out of 5]

مغامرة مثيرة جدا وغير متوقعة لشخصيتي المفضلة وحبي الدائم شيرلوك هولمز بترجمة رائعة لعمر إبراهيم

[Nour Alaa · Rating 3 out of 5]

القصة كويسة .. مش بقوة كونان دويل بس مش بطالة
ترجمة ممتازة و لغة حلوة أوي من عمر ابراهيم المترجم

[Osman Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

كقلم السيد ديفيز المعتاد، عظيمة.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Scroll of the Dead” by David Stuart Davies was first published in 1998, and then republished in 2009 under Titan Books “Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” imprint.

At only 172 pages (208 including excerpts from other books), “The Scroll of the Dead” is quite short, more a novella than a novel, but it is a great read.

I was reluctant to read it at first, as I had read “The Veiled Detective”, another of David Stuart Davies Sherlock Holmes novels, and had not enjoyed it. “The Scroll of the Dead”, however, is totally different to “The Veiled Detective”.

A papyrus scroll is stolen from the British Museum and Scotland Yard asks Holmes for help. Theft, murder and the obligatory damsel in distress all permeate the story making it fast paced and absorbing.

What I really love about “The Scroll of the Dead” is that David Stuart Davies has totally captured the warmth and strength of the friendship between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

I was a little sad that the Scotland Yard inspector was not one of the ones from the canon. I do love Lestrade, Gregson, and Jones. I have a particular affection for Athelney Jones, as well as Lestrade.

I do not hesitate to recommend the book to all Sherlockians.

“The Scroll of the Dead” is a worthy addition to the annals of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

[Nouran Esmat Elraghy · Rating 5 out of 5]

اسم الكتاب : شيرلوك هولمز…لفافة الموتي
اسم المؤلف :ديفيد ستيوارت ديفيز
اسم المترجم: عمر إبراهيم
عدد الصفحات : ٢٠٦
التقييم :٥/٥
يقوم شيرلوك هولمز بحضور جلسة لتحضير الأرواح وذلك لكي يفضح أمر دجال يدعي انه وسيط روحاني
وعقب ذلك يظهر عدو جديد لشيرلوك يدعي "ملموث" وهو يبذل كل ما في وسعه ليضع يده علي بردية مصر ية قديمة غامضة والتي تكون مفتاح للخلود الأبدي
بصراحة القصة مثيرة جداً وعبقرية في السرد والحكي والإثارة طول الوقت عاوز اعرف إيه اللي هيحصل وهل انت توقعت النتيجة دي ولا لأ؟
وطبعاً مش هتكلم عن الترجمة لأن الترجمة أكثر من روعة
ودي مش اول مرة اقرأ ترجمة عمر إبراهيم
أنا أصلا اشتريتها عشان انا بحب الجريمة والإثارة والغموض والتشويق
وعشان ترجمة : عمر إبراهيم
اللي خلاص بقي اي حاجه عليها اسمه بشتريها حتي لو مش عارفه المؤلف ميين اساسا بشتري ترجمته وانا متطمنة جداً😊
لأني كمان متبعاه من اول الهامس في الظلمات لافكرفت
كانت اول حاجه اقراها ترجمته
كنت اه متخوفه في الاول وخايفة من الترجمه بس لما قريتها فعلا لقيت الترجمه رائعه واستمتعت جداً بالهامس في الظلمات
وكمان بعد تجربة شيرلوك حاسة بفرق كبير جداً جداً جداً وتطور ملحوظ
وحاسة ان كل كتاب احلي من اللي قبله بجد
الهامس في الظلمات جميلة
والجليد والنار أحلي
وشيرلوك هولمز أحلي
واللي جاي إن شاء الله هيكون أحلي وأحلي

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is one of fifty put out by Titan books in an extended line of Sherlock Holmes adventures by different authors. It contains a mystery within a mystery, and the pace is quite good. Davies has written five of the fifty books, and I plan to read more.

Holmes and Watson work very well together here, much like the later canon. This story has a twist; a solution half way through that turns out to be only half a solution. From this point forward, there are paragraph long asides from an omniscient perspective. This was a little jarring - most writers use Watson's perspective, as Doyle did. In this story, it worked, perhaps better than having those appear in the final summing up. 3½ stars.

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did not feel comfortable to read. It felt like when you wear shoes that don’t fit properly so that they rub a blister on your ankle over time. It didn’t feel like the flow and pacing of most Sherlock Holmes novels. I found the brief switching of viewpoints showing the villains jarring, and the foreshadowing felt very obvious or contrived. I can tell that this author has the ability to write and create moods and characters very well. It is the plotting that felt somehow off to me. This just didn’t feel right this time, or maybe in this particular series or genre. I might like this authors work better if he writes within his own universe and with his own characters.

[Bailey Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's mostly in character, but there are moments that Watson takes over as narrator when there's something happening away from where he is and it's a little weird.

The plot is interesting, but I did find that Holmes, when sharing about what he plans to do, is more talkative than what ACD had Holmes be.

Overall, not a bad pastiche and is fun to read.

Recommended 11/12+ for murder.

[LGandT · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't what I expected. No Egypt. I didn't quite expect a seriously denied love story. Holmes whispering in Watson's ear on several occasions, if I wanted that I would write it myself.

I would recommend it because at heart it was a good story, it was just the details I could do without.
It was fast paced and full of action but it won't be going into my collection.

[Ingy · Rating 5 out of 5]

اختيار القصة للترجمة موفق جدا
اسلوب الترجمة سلس وواضح المجهود المبذول فيه لأنه بيخلينى كقارىء اركز مع القصة مش مع محاولة فهم المترجم عايز يقول ايه أو ايه معنى الكلمة المستخدمة.
للمترجم ترجمة سابقة لشعر و رعب بالاضافة للكتاب الحالى و التلاتة مختلفين فى أسلوب الترجمة بما يناسب كل نوع.
المترجم لا يكتفى بالترجمة و لكن بيتقمص روح الكاتب و كأنه بيعيد تأليف الكتاب بالعربى مش بيترجمه.

[Roaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

مساء الخير
لسة مخلصة قراءة دلوقتى .. حرفيًا عبارة عن ٢٠٦ صفحة من الحماس والإبداع ... مفيهاش اى ذرة ملل وربطتنى لدرجة سيبت المذاكرة كلها وخلصتها ف نفس اليوم ... بهنيك حقيقي ع ترجمتك الناجحة ليها وعقبال ترجمات وإصدارات تانية كتير تمتع بيها قراء اكتر 🥰💖

[WhatShouldIRead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another enjoyable Holmes and Watson adventure from this author. I like how he takes the duo out of London and the descriptions of each area they visit to solve the case. The camaraderie between the two is much like the original stories and I appreciate that as well.

On to the next adventure!

[Ahmed Lamloom · Rating 5 out of 5]

بقيت متشوق اقرا رواية من تأليفك يا مبدع

[h_m_k_ 5 9 · Rating 5 out of 5]

ششييررلوو��ك💗

[Anurag Majumdar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite entertaining. This pages went flying as quickly as Holmes deductive abilities. Definitely one of the better pastiches.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those Sherlock Holmes pastiches that feels almost eerily faithful, as though Conan Doyle himself had stepped out of the misty Baker Street fog and decided, in the twilight of his career, to indulge the fin-de-siècle craze for all things Egyptian.

Published in 1998, the novel sits at an intriguing point in the landscape of Holmes continuations: after Nicholas Meyer had shocked the world with The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and its psychoanalytic reinvention, after Michael Dibdin had scandalised with The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, and after Laurie R. King had married him off in her bold Mary Russell series. By contrast, Davies’s Holmes is not reinvented, not modernised, and not ironised. Instead, it is extended. The Scroll of the Dead reads less like a contemporary reimagining and more like the discovery of an untold adventure tucked away in Watson’s battered dispatch box.

At its heart, the novel is a collision between rational detection and the gothic allure of the supernatural, a collision that Doyle himself often staged but never fully surrendered to. Egyptomania was everywhere in the late Victorian and Edwardian world: the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb was still in the future, but already the British imagination was fired by scarabs, hieroglyphs, sarcophagi, and the whispers of ancient curses. The “mummy’s curse” trope was practically made for Holmes. Davies seizes on that cultural fascination and inserts Holmes into its heart. The novel’s atmosphere is thick with relics and scrolls, with museum corridors echoing with menace, with the suggestion that something older than Christianity itself is stirring.

But Holmes, of course, is the eternal sceptic. He is Doyle’s rationalist knight, the defender of empiricism against hysteria. That is part of the enduring fun of these pastiches: watching Holmes in settings that test the limits of his reason. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Doyle himself flirted with the supernatural, teasing his readers with a spectral beast only to unveil a decidedly earthly culprit. Davies follows that template. He conjures an ancient curse with one hand and dismantles it with the other, allowing Holmes the full stage to perform his signature balancing act—respectful of belief, yet inexorable in his pursuit of facts.

The novel begins, as so many Holmes tales do, in Baker Street. Davies is careful to re-establish the cadence of Watson’s narration, the familiar rhythms of his admiration and his occasional obtuseness. For readers steeped in the canon, this is like slipping back into a well-worn armchair: the gaslight glow, the clink of teacups, Holmes’s violin droning faintly in the background. Into this domestic cocoon comes the case—an ancient Egyptian artefact, a scroll rumoured to carry deadly power, a trail of strange deaths surrounding its possession. It is all satisfyingly gothic, and Watson’s prose, as ventriloquised by Davies, heightens the mood without lapsing into parody.

What distinguishes Davies among the legion of Holmes pasticheurs is his restraint. He does not overload Holmes with exaggerated quirks or attempt to modernise Watson’s diction. He does not seek to “explain away” Holmes’s genius with psychology, nor to embroil him in outlandish historical conspiracies. Instead, Davies writes with the confidence of someone who has internalised the canon so thoroughly that he can mimic its tone almost invisibly. One of the highest compliments a pastiche can earn is for the reader to forget, momentarily, that it is not Doyle. Davies approaches that territory more closely than most.

And yet, this is no mere exercise in imitation. The Scroll of the Dead is also a lively, pulpy adventure in its own right. Davies leans into the melodramatic possibilities of his subject: secret chambers, arcane rituals, sinister figures moving through London fog. The pacing has the rhythm of serialised storytelling, each chapter pushing toward the next revelation, the next dramatic set piece. It is Holmes filtered through the lens of the penny dreadful and the cinematic adventure film—a blend of Doyle’s discipline and pulp’s exuberance. For a reader bingeing through pastiches, the novel provides a kind of tonic: reassuring in its fidelity, but energetic in its staging.

One of the most engaging aspects of Davies’s approach is the way he positions Watson. Many pastiches struggle with Watson, either sidelining him as a bumbling foil or inflating him into an implausibly brilliant partner. Davies stays true to Doyle’s balance. Watson is brave and loyal, occasionally slow to see what Holmes sees, but never ridiculous. His voice carries the novel, and his admiration for Holmes gives the detective his necessary theatrical platform. There are moments where Watson is swept up in the allure of the curse, where his medical rationalism falters before the grandeur of the Egyptian mythos. This makes Holmes’s scepticism all the more bracing: he must not only solve the case but also win Watson back from the edge of superstition.

Placed alongside more experimental pastiches, The Scroll of the Dead feels almost conservative, but that conservatism is part of its pleasure. Nicholas Meyer, in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, gave us a Holmes in therapy with Sigmund Freud, confronting his cocaine habit and his Oedipal anxieties. Michael Dibdin, in The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, turned Holmes into Jack the Ripper himself, annihilating the myth. Laurie R. King, in The Art of Detection, layered a Holmes manuscript inside a modern police procedural, making Holmes a literary object as much as a character. Davies does none of these things. His Holmes does not need reinvention; he needs only another case worthy of him. In this sense, The Scroll of the Dead belongs to that category of pastiches that seek continuity rather than disruption, homage rather than revision.

That is not to say the novel is without its own kind of daring. Egypt, as a setting, allows Davies to probe questions of empire, superstition, and cultural appropriation—questions that would have hovered in the background of Doyle’s own readership. The British Empire plundered artefacts from Cairo to Calcutta, and the museum became both a temple of knowledge and a crypt of stolen wonders. By centring his plot on a deadly scroll, Davies positions Holmes as the guardian of rational British order against the perceived chaos of the colonised past. Whether Davies intended this as critique or merely atmosphere is debatable, but the thematic resonance is hard to miss. The novel becomes a little window into the anxieties of imperial Britain, refracted through the lens of gothic adventure.

For modern readers, there is also the nostalgic pleasure of inhabiting a world where detection feels like a noble art, uncorrupted by forensic machinery or bureaucratic sprawl. Holmes, with his magnifying glass and his fierce logic, stands against the encroaching tide of irrational fear. In our age of conspiracy theories and viral superstitions, that stance feels oddly refreshing. Davies gives us a Holmes who is pure Doyle, undistracted by metafictional games or postmodern irony, a Holmes who does what he has always done: restore reason to a world trembling on the edge of madness.

The novel is not flawless. At times, the pulp elements threaten to overtake the plausibility of the plot. The curse, though ultimately explained, stretches credulity in ways that Doyle himself might have tightened. Some readers may find the reliance on Gothic atmospherics heavy-handed. Yet these very qualities are also part of its charm. A Holmes pastiche, after all, must balance fidelity with invention, and if Davies leans a little more into melodrama than Doyle might have, he does so in the service of entertainment. The result is a story that moves briskly, that conjures mood with gusto, and that makes us forget, at least for a moment, that we are not in the company of Doyle himself.

Where does The Scroll of the Dead sit, then, in the sprawling library of Holmesian afterlives? It is not the most innovative, nor the most shocking. It does not seek to reinvent Holmes for a new century. Instead, it occupies a space of continuity, a bridge between Doyle’s originals and the endless appetite of readers who cannot bear to let Holmes go. It reminds us that sometimes, the greatest tribute to a character is not to subvert him but simply to let him live again, in new adventures that feel uncannily like old ones. Davies is not trying to out-Doyle Doyle. He is trying to channel him, and in doing so, he preserves the detective’s voice for another generation.

For those of us binge-reviewing pastiches, moving from the experimental to the faithful, from the audacious to the conservative, Davies offers a kind of palate cleanser. He reminds us of what first drew us to Holmes: the clash of reason and mystery, the music of Watson’s admiration, and the foggy streets of London where anything might be waiting just beyond the gaslight. The Scroll of the Dead may not shock us into rethinking Holmes, but it delights us into remembering why we love him. And in the crowded company of Holmes pastiches, that is achievement enough.

By the end of the novel, the curse is unmasked, the rational order restored, and Baker Street is once again quiet. Holmes has triumphed, not by magic, but by deduction. The scroll returns to its silence, and Watson closes his notebook. Yet as readers, we sense that Holmes himself never truly rests. He is always there, waiting for another writer to open the dispatch box, to find another untold tale. With The Scroll of the Dead, David Stuart Davies has given us just such a tale—familiar, atmospheric, faithful, and, in its own modest way, artful.

[LuAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-constructed pastiche that captures well the tone, pacing, setting and characters of the Canon. I highly enjoyed it and found the plot well-constructed and the characters unique.

Watson is a bit more reluctant than "usual," there's a few passages of odd third person narration of another character's actions, and I found at least one anachronism (gobbledegook was not seen in print until 1944 and I don't know that museum guards would drink tea in mugs). But I can excuse these for the general high quality.

[Catherine Conley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, not a bad book. Davies keeps much of the right tone of a Sherlock Holmes story with Sherlock's infuriating tendency to keep things to himself and a sufficiently convoluted plot full of the arcane. However, Davies's Holmes is caught off guard more than Doyle's and a bit too reflective at the end.

[Nicole West Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first every Sherlock Holmes book read.
I feel a celebration coming on.
I'm so happy the first one I decided to pick up
dealt with Ancient Egypt. I'm an Egyptologist at heart!

[Bryan Whitehead · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I’ve read in Titan’s new “The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” series. Not bad. Holmes and Watson take on Sebastian Melmoth (a character clearly based on Oscar Wilde) in pursuit of a pilfered papyrus of instructions for raising the dead. Author David Stuart Davies has a good sense of how Holmes stories should be put together, not to mention a highly readable writing style. I’m grateful to TCM for running the Basil-Rathbone-as-Holmes marathon that got me in the mood and to the mystery bookstore on Johnson Drive for stocking the set (hurrah for independent booksellers).

[Chris Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant, really enjoyed this one. The story is enjoyable and is convoluted enough to keep you entertained, the bad guy/s are obvious from the start but I think this is intentional. Holmes and Watson are written very well in this, the atmosphere of the time is very accurate and it is easy to drift away while reading. If however, you are expecting an Egyptian jaunt with Holmes and Watson around some dusty Pharaoh tombs, this isn't for you because they don't. Recommended, this is a great addition to the further adventures.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unmasking a charlatan at a séance is child's play for Sherlock Holmes, but when he is later contacted by one of the attendees to further search for evidence of paranormal activity, he declines the case.

A year later, a murder at the British Museum and the theft of a valuable Egyptian artefact puts Holmes and Watson on the path of a murderer intent on raising the dead.

Davies' novel is well written in the style of Doyle, but the narrative fails in its attempt to confound readers and doesn't quite convince readers of the genius of Sherlock Holmes.

[Artem · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Scroll of the Dead postulates the mystery of a robbery in a museum of an ancient scroll that promises life after death. Holmes is brought in to try and decipher who stole the artifact and attempt to return it safely to the museum. This pastiche was pretty interesting compared to some of the others. It didn't necessarily tell a classic Holmes story but was interesting, engaging and exciting to read. David Stuart Davies successfully engages the reader on an adventure to track down the missing scroll and all those responsible for it's disappearance. 4 stars.

[Gilbert G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever wished you could live for ever? Well there are Egyptologist think it has the answer even drawing Doctor Watson and the super sleuth Sherlock Holmes into an escapade that involves murder and a lost papyrus document that is thousands of years old that may or may not answer the question of living eternally!
A good read! Enjoy fellow readers👍👍

[Andrea Engle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reasonably decent pastiche, with appropriate, Conan Doylish asides ... a trifle melodramatic, but entertaining all the same ... deals with a burglary of the British Museum and the flutter among English-born Egyptologists ...

[Gus Scholtz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read . Holmes and Watson meander through a cast if characters in search of mysterious Egyptian artifacts in England. At first I didn’t want to read because I thought the book would be include magic . It doesn’t.

[Melet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well-written with good characters! But when the ectoplasm started coming in, the eye-rolling started. Holmes has never needed the grotesque, the supernatural, or the unbelievable to make a good adventure.