Die-hard Sherlock Holmes fans will be delighted with our newly developed and comprehensive review of the best Sherlock Holmes books (both fiction and anthologies) for 2022.
There is something for everyone: those interested in International settings will enjoy Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years: Japan by Vasudev Murthy. Titles by Anthony Hurwitz such as Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes, #2) are must-reads and there are picks for those looking for cross-genre fiction.
Note: We encourage graphic novel fans to check out 18 Best Sherlock Holmes Graphic Novels To Read Now. Our coverage of Sherlockian books, TV and movies is also available here.
Once again, The Game’s Afoot…
London, 1890. 221B Baker St. A fine art dealer named Edmund Carstairs visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson to beg for their help. He is being menaced by a strange man in a flat cap – a wanted criminal who seems to have followed him all the way from America. In the days that follow, his home is robbed, his family is threatened. And then the first murder takes place.
Almost unwillingly, Holmes and Watson find themselves being drawn ever deeper into an international conspiracy connected to the teeming criminal underworld of Boston, the gaslit streets of London, opium dens and much, much more.
And as they dig, they begin to hear the whispered phrase-the House of Silk-a mysterious entity that connects the highest levels of government to the deepest depths of criminality. Holmes begins to fear that he has uncovered a conspiracy that threatens to tear apart the very fabric of society.
It is 1921 and Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes’s brilliant apprentice, now an Oxford graduate with a degree in theology–is on the verge of acquiring a sizable inheritance. Independent at last, with a passion for divinity and detective work, her most baffling mystery may now involve Holmes and the burgeoning of a deeper affection between herself and the retired detective.
Russell’s attentions turn to the New Temple of God and its leader, Margery Childe, a charismatic suffragette and a mystic, whose draw on the young theology scholar is irresistible.
104. A Study in Sherlock (Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon, #1)
Neil Gaiman. Laura Lippman. Lee Child. These are just three of eighteen superstar authors who provide fascinating, thrilling, and utterly original perspectives on Sherlock Holmes in this one-of-a-kind book.
These modern masters place the sleuth in suspenseful new situations, create characters who solve Holmesian mysteries, contemplate Holmes in his later years, fill gaps in the Sherlock Holmes Canon, and reveal their own personal obsessions with the Great Detective.
Thomas Perry, for example, has Dr. Watson tell his tale, in a virtuoso work of alternate history that finds President McKinley approaching the sleuth with a disturbing request; Lee Child sends an FBI agent to investigate a crime near today’s Baker Street—only to get a twenty-first-century shock; Jacqueline Winspear spins a story of a plucky boy inspired by the detective to make his own deductions; and graphic artist Colin Cotterill portrays his struggle to complete this assignment in his hilarious “The Mysterious Case of the Unwritten Short Story.”* In perfect tribute comes this delicious collection of twisty, clever, and enthralling studies of a timeless icon.
Days after the encounter at the Swiss waterfall, Pinkerton detective agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. Moriarty’s death has left an immediate, poisonous vacuum in the criminal underworld, and there is no shortage of candidates to take his place—including one particularly fiendish criminal mastermind.
Chase and Scotland Yard Inspector Athelney Jones, a devoted student of Holmes’s methods of investigation and deduction originally introduced by Conan Doyle in “The Sign of Four”, must forge a path through the darkest corners of England’s capital—from the elegant squares of Mayfair to the shadowy wharfs and alleyways of the London Docks—in pursuit of this sinister figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, who is determined to stake his claim as Moriarty’s successor.
A riveting, deeply atmospheric tale of murder and menace from one of the only writers to earn the seal of approval from Conan Doyle’s estate, Moriarty breathes life into Holmes’s dark and fascinating world.
Having foiled sabotage of Project: Tesseract by an unknown spy ring, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Skye Chadwick face the next challenge. How do they find the members of this diabolical spy ring when they do not even know what the ring is trying to accomplish? And how can they do it when Skye is recovering from no less than two nigh-fatal wounds?
Further complicating matters is their relationship. For the ups and downs between Holmes and Chadwick are due to something more than the occasional clash of demanding, eccentric personalities. Chadwick acknowledges to herself that she has fallen in love with Holmes. Knowing he eschews matters of the heart, however, she struggles to hide it, in order to maintain the friendship they do have, preferring said friendship to total alienation.
Holmes also feels attraction – but fights it tooth and nail, refusing to admit to the fact, even to himself. After all, it is not merely Skye’s work the spies may be after – but her life as well. Having already lost Watson to the vagaries of spacetime, could he endure losing another companion? Can they work out the intricacies of their relationship? Can they determine the reason the spy ring is after the tesseract? And – most importantly – can they stop it?
From the well-worn tin dispatch box belonging to Dr J. H. Watson, three untold stories are brought to light. In Sherlock Holmes and The Murder At Lodore Falls, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are drawn into a case that involves murder, blackmail and robbery.
It is a case that leads to danger to both Homes and Watson and brings a confrontation with their old adversary. With Dr Watson facing his own personal nightmares, will Holmes be able to solve the mystery and help his troubled friend?
The two other tales are Christmas stories. In The Adventure Of The Wooden Boat, Dr Watson is haunted by an old tragedy and copes by building a model boat, which is an old family tradition.
In The Call of Angels, Dr Watson has an accident while travelling back to Baker Street and is aided by a mysterious stranger. Who is this mysterious stranger? Sherlock Holmes is determined to uncover the truth, but all is not as it appears as his investigation comes to a stunning conclusion.
Swashbuckling action and classic murder mystery combine in this invigorating pastiche of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous duo and Anthony Hope’s Zenda novels.
A Colonel Sapt of the Ruritanian Court journeys to England on a secret mission to save the country from anarchy. His mission is to engage the services of Rudolf Rassendyll once more to impersonate the King while the monarch recovers from a serious illness.
But Rassendyll has mysteriously disappeared. In desperation, Sapt consults Sherlock Holmes who, with his faithful companion Watson, travels to the Kingdom of Ruritania in an effort to thwart the plans of the scheming Rupert of Hentzau in his bid for the throne.
99. The Case of the Left-Handed Lady (Enola Holmes #2) by Nancy Springer
Enola Holmes is hiding from the world’s most famous detective—her own brother, Sherlock Holmes. But when she discovers a hidden cache of bold, brilliant charcoal drawings, she can’t help but venture out to find who drew them: young Lady Cecily, who has disappeared from her bedroom without a trace.
Braving midnight streets where murderers roam, Enola must unravel the clues—a leaning ladder, a shifty-eyed sales clerk, political pamphlets—but in order to save Lady Cecily from a powerful villain, Enola risks revealing more than she should.
98. The Secret Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes by June Thomson
This collection of stories, allegedly written by Doctor Watson, includes the tragic tale of Lord Deerswood’s unwanted legacy, the account of the jealous contortionist, the affair of the beautiful housekeeper, the deadly doings of the costumed Russian, the Aladdin’s Cave episode, and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the deadly Sumatran rats.
The discovery of these Sherlock Holmes cases – one of which reunites Holmes with brother Mycroft – represents a treasure trove for Baker Street devotees.
The biggest collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle laid down his pen – nearly 200,000 words of superb fiction featuring the Great Detective by masters of historical crime, including Stephen Baxter, H. R. F. Keating, Michael Moorcock and Amy Myers.
Almost all the stories here are specially written; the cases presented in the order in which Holmes solved them. The result is a new life of Sherlock Holmes, with a continuous narrative alongside the stories that identifies the ‘gaps’ in the canon and places the new and hitherto unrecorded cases in sequence. Plus an invaluable complete Holmes chronology.
In the summer of 1994, a workman at the historic mansion of railroad baron James J. Hill in St. Paul, Minnesota, stumbles on a long-hidden wall safe. When experts arrive to open the safe and examine its contents, they make an astonishing discovery. There, inside, is a handwritten manuscript bearing the signature of John H. Watson, M.D.
The manuscript contains the story of how Sherlock Holmes and Watson traveled to Minnesota to track a murderous arsonist—known only as the Red Demon—who is threatening both Hill and his Great Northern Railway.
95. Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes by J.R. Campbell
Between the shadowy realms of fear and the unforgiving glare of science lies a battleground of unspeakable horror. In vile alleyways with blood-slick cobblestones, impenetrable fog, and the wan glow of gaslight, lurk the inhuman denizens of nightmare.
Faced with his worst fears, Sherlock Holmes has his faith in the science of observation and deduction shaken to the core in 13 all-new tales of terror from today’s modern masters of the macabre!
Leslie S. Klinger, Charles V. Prepolec, Stephen Volk, Lawrence C. Connolly, William Meikle, James A. Moore, William Patrick Maynard, Hayden Trenholm, Neil Jackson, Robert Lauderdale, Leigh Blackmore, Mark Morris, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Barbara Roden, J. R. Campbell.
94. A Study in Brimstone (Warlock Holmes, #1) by G.S. Denning
Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag.
The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart companion.
Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety… and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.
Roger Riccard, having published two previous Sherlock Holmes novels, The Case of the Poisoned Lilly and The Case of the Twain Papers, has again taken pen in hand to bring forth a series of twelve short stories from the Christmas seasons of Holmes’ career.
From a case endangering Queen Victoria to his old arch-nemesis Moriarty, follow Sherlock as he encounters the most unfathomable mysteries, all portrayed with Riccard’s trademark style and immersive historical detail.
92. Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years: Japan by Vasudev Murthy
It’s 1893. King Kamehameha III of Hawaii declares Sovereignty Restoration Day … Tension grows between China and Japan over Korea … The Bengal Famine worsens … A brilliant scientist in Calcutta challenges the system … The senior priest at Kyoto’s Kinkaku-ji temple is found dead in mysterious circumstances.
Dr. John H. Watson receives a strange letter from Yokohama. Then the quiet, distinguished Mr. Hashimoto is murdered inside a closed room on a voyage from Liverpool to Bombay. In the opium dens of Shanghai and in the back alleys of Tokyo, sinister men hatch evil plots. Professor Moriarty stalks the world, drawing up a map for worldwide dominion.
Only one man can outwit the diabolical Professor Moriarty. Only one man can save the world. Has Sherlock Holmes survived the Reichenbach Falls?
Named one of “13 Detective Book Series You Obsessed Over as a Kid” by Buzzfeed.com and the inspiration for a hit Disney film, the masterful Great Mouse Detective is back and tackling America’s most ruthless outlaws in the Wild West!
In this case of the smiling smugglers, Basil is off to the Wild West. But this time the Sherlock Holmes of the mouse world takes on the Big Cheeses of American mouse crime!
Basil’s first stop is New Mexico, where a notorious gang of smiling smugglers is holed up with their ruthless leader, JJ, who is trying to set up his own superstate with the profits from his ill-gotten gains!
90. The Game Is Afoot: Parodies, Pastiches and Ponderings of Sherlock Holmes by Marvin Kaye
89. Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula (Victorian Undead, #2) by Ian Edginton
A year after the defeat of Professor Moriarty’s revenant horde and the fire-bombing of London, restoration is well under way. Yet, from across the sea, ancient eyes cast their hungry gaze upon the still vulnerable capital…Dracula is coming!
88. The Deadwood Stage (Sherlock Holmes & Young Winston #1) by Mike Hogan
Holmes and Watson find a cuckoo in their comfortable nest at 221B Baker Street when, after a chance encounter in Hyde Park, 12-year-old Winston Spencer-Churchill is dumped on them by his far from doting mother, Lady Randolph. Winston blossoms under the affectionate, if occasionally jealous care of Watson.
His developing detective skills and connections in Society are combined with a capacity for creating mayhem. Add in pack of Indians from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show and a homicidal pork butcher with an axe, and as Holmes says of this first in a series of adventures “I dare say these experiences have done him a power of good. He will be much better prepared for daily life at his public school”.
When a mysterious gypsy places a cruel curse on the guests at a ball and a series of terrible misfortunes begin to affect those who attended that night, Mr. Donald Wheelwight engages Sherlock Holmes to find out what really happened that fateful evening.
With the help of his cousin Dr. Henry Vernier and his wife Michelle, Holmes endeavors to save Wheelwright and his beautiful wife Violet from the devastating curse.
As the threats to the captivating Violet mount, Holmes is drawn in deeper and deeper, finding himself entangled in a vast dark web involving prostitution, perversion, theft, and blackmail.
86. My Grave Ritual (Warlock Holmes #3) by G.S. Denning
As they blunder towards doom, Warlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson find themselves inconvenienced by a variety of eldritch beings.
85. The Spirit Box by George Mann
Summer, 1915. As Zeppelins rain death upon the rooftops of London, eminent members of society begin to behave erratically: a Member of Parliament throws himself naked into the Thames after giving a pro-German speech to the House; a senior military advisor suggests surrender before feeding himself to a tiger at London Zoo; a famed suffragette suddenly renounces the women’s liberation movement and throws herself under a train.
84. The Marriage of Mary Russell (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #2.5) by Laurie R. King
Though she cannot entirely discount the effects of the head injuries they were both suffering at the time, Mary Russell is delighted by Sherlock Holmes’s proposal of marriage.
After all, they have become partners-in-crime, and she has recently come into her inheritance: what remains but to confirm the union with her mentor-turned-partner through a piece of paper? Russell’s pragmatic side tells her to head straight to the registry office—until Holmes surprises her with a sentimental wish to be married in the chapel of his ancestral manor.
83. The Will of the Dead by George Mann
82. The Adventures of the Second Mrs. Watson by Michael Mallory
The redoubtable Amelia Watson – the second wife of Dr. John H. Watson of Baker Street fame – 12 light-hearted adventures whose puzzles would tax the ingenuity of the master himself!
Mrs. Watson is a woman very much of her Victorian time. She retains her femininity utterly, yet has a strong and well-formed individuality.
These admirable traits enable her to pair with Holmes as well as her own dear Watson, showing the men a thing or two about ultra-intelligent forensic deduction. More tolerant and more compassionate than Holmes, Mrs. Watson is equally strong-minded and relentless in pursuing justice.
London. A snowy December, 1888. Sherlock Holmes, 34, is languishing and back on cocaine after a disastrous Ripper investigation. Watson can neither comfort nor rouse his friend – until a strangely encoded letter arrives from Paris.
Mlle La Victoire, a beautiful French cabaret star writes that her illegitimate son by an English lord has disappeared, and she has been attacked in the streets of Montmartre.
Racing to Paris with Watson at his side, Holmes discovers the missing child is only the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem. The most valuable statue since the Winged Victory has been violently stolen in Marseilles, and several children from a silk mill in Lancashire have been found murdered. The clues in all three cases point to a single, untouchable man.
Will Holmes recover in time to find the missing boy and stop a rising tide of murders? To do so he must stay one step ahead of a dangerous French rival and the threatening interference of his own brother, Mycroft.
80. The Secret Notebooks of Sherlock Holmes by June Thomson
In Sherlock Holmes’s London, reputations are fragile and scandal can be ruinous. In order to protect the names of the good (and not-so-good), Dr Watson comes to the decision that his accounts of some of his friend’s most brilliant cases must never see the light of day. And so he conceals the manuscripts in an old despatch box, deep in the vaults of a Charing Cross bank…
Now, outlasting the memories of those they could have harmed, these mysteries finally come to light. An aluminium crutch betrays the criminal who relies upon it for support… An Italian Cardinal lies dead in a muddy yard in Spitalfields… What do a pair of suspiciously successful gamblers have in common with the Transylvanian mind-reader, Count Rakoczi? And can Holmes and Watson outwit the jewel thief who has the nerve to steal from the King of Scandinavia?
As she notes in her introduction to ELEMENTARY EROTICA: “I was surprised by the overwhelming response I got when I requested [these] erotic stories. Holmes’s apparent distaste for women and seeming lack of interest in sex make him an unlikely hero for an erotic story, but each of these authors found their own unique way of dealing with this problem. The backdrop of Victorian England is one filled with tension and danger for homosexual men.This was a time and a place where it was illegal to be gay, plain and simple. We’d do well to remember that Holmes was not always a devotee of the law.”
By transforming the Victorian figure into an erotic one, these stories make social commentary on the repressiveness of the Victorian age and fear of sexuality in our own times. They are simultaneously parodic, through their use of known settings and tropes, and erotic, through their liberation of the previously unwritten sexuality of the characters.
78. Requiem For Sherlock Holmes by Paul Stuart Hayes
Sherlock Holmes returns in five enthralling cases. Written in an authentic style, each tale adds new layers to the legend of the great detective. When Holmes’ father is arrested for the murder of a servant, Sherlock has to prove his father’s innocence and clear the family name. However, the fractious relationship between father and son makes the case doubly a challenge. Will they be able to put aside age-old hostilities and find the true culprit before the accused has his date with the gallows?
77. The Case Of Emily V by Keith Oatley
Fiction. First published in U.K. in 1994. Never released in the U.S. This mystery involves the story of Emily in fin de siecle Vienna, a young woman horribly distraught because of the murder of a British diplomat, a murder she believes she committed. But did she? Her therapist, Dr. Sigmund Freud, suggests to his colleagues that she is fantasizing.
Sara, her colleague/lover, is supportive of her regardless of what she did. It takes the famous Sherlock Holmes, called in by Scotland Yard, to resolve this issue. This highly psychological mystery keeps a reader wondering until the final pages. This book was eleven weeks on the Globe and Mail best seller list. It was reprinted four times before being reissued as a Minerva paperback. It was shortlisted for the Mind Prize in UK, and it won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel.
76. Gravity Games by John Matsui
Clandestine forces kidnap a Canadian scientist and weaponize his anti-gravity technology. Homeland Security intercepts the group’s ransom demand: Distribute trillions of dollars to the poor or icebergs will rain on the world’s great cities.
When a multi-national security force hits a wall, it turns to world-famous celebrity chef Nathan Sherlock and sidekick Bonnie Nakagowa.
The pair is a secret Sherlock Holmes / Dr. John Watson duo for the 21st Century. Known to culinary fans as Nate The Nose, Nathan possesses a super sense of smell that guides Bonnie and him to assist police anonymously and sniff down criminals.
In the tradition of the most labyrinthian adventures of A. Conan Doyle’s famous detective, nothing in Gravity Games is as it seems.
It falls to Nathan and Bonnie to solve the mystery following Sherlock Holmes’ tried and true method: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
75. The Irregular Casebook of Sherlock Holmes by Ron Weighell
Sherlock Holmes, wrote his friend and chronicler John H. Watson, was an ‘unofficial adviser and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled’, and as such Holmes came into contact with ‘all that is strange and bizarre’.
Cases such as THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES or ‘The Sussex Vampire’ show the great detective dealing with matters which certainly are strange and bizarre; yet in all the sixty cases in the Sherlockian canon, Holmes proves that the supernatural plays no part in the matter under investigation.
74. Sherlock Holmes and the Two Treasures by Diana Wolff
Sherlock Holmes’ life is thrown into disorder when a six-month old baby appears unexpectedly at his home. In all his experience, Holmes has never confronted the mystery of parenthood and it practically breaks him. He is bound to protect her, determined to solve the mystery of her identity, and perplexed by the lack of solutions to some of the problems she presents.
The baby’s identity proves to be the key to a case of international scandal, jewel theft, attempted kidnapping and a challenge to the line of royal succession of Bohemia. Holmes, accompanied by his friend John Watson, uses his intelligence, his physical skill and his intuition, but even those tools may not be enough to protect his heart against the one woman who has bested him in the game of wits.
73. Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche (Enola Holmes #7) by Nancy Springer
Enola Holmes is the much younger sister of her more famous brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft. But she has all the wits, skills, and sleuthing inclinations of them both. At fifteen, she’s an independent young woman–after all, her name spelled backwards reads ‘alone’–and living on her own in London.
When a young professional woman, Miss Letitia Glover, shows up on Sherlock’s doorstep, desperate to learn more about the fate of her twin sister, it is Enola who steps up. It seems her sister, the former Felicity Glover, married the Earl of Dunhench and per a curt note from the Earl, has died. But Letitia Glover is convinced this isn’t the truth, that she’d know–she’d feel–if her twin had died.
The Earl’s note is suspiciously vague and the death certificate is even more dubious, signed it seems by a John H. Watson, M.D. (who denies any knowledge of such).
The only way forward is for Enola to go undercover–or so Enola decides at the vehement objection of her brother. And she soon finds out that this is not the first of the Earl’s wives to die suddenly and vaguely–and that the secret to the fate of the missing Felicity is tied to a mysterious black barouche that arrived at the Earl’s home in the middle of the night. To uncover the secrets held tightly within the Earl’s hall, Enola is going to require help–from Sherlock, from the twin sister of the missing woman, and from an old friend, the young Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether!
72. A Study in Cyborgs by W.R. MacNeill
On a good day, Hana Moss is 33.9 million miles from her hometown on Mars, but today is not a good day. Earth’s gravity weighs heavy on her, she’s lost in the sky-high labyrinth of Victoria City, and she has nowhere to sleep. When Hols Keller offers her a room to rent, Moss doesn’t ask too many questions.
Within hours, she’s in the middle of a crime scene, helping her new roommate investigate a murder.
Who killed this retired colonial governor? How are cyborgs and AIs all over the city getting hacked when that shouldn’t be possible? Most importantly: who is Hols Keller really, and why is Moss ready to follow her anywhere?
71. The Clockwork Scarab (Stoker & Holmes #1) by Colleen Gleason
Evaline Stoker and Mina Holmes never meant to get into the family business. But when you’re the sister of Bram and the niece of Sherlock, vampire hunting and mystery solving are in your blood.
The stakes are high. If Stoker and Holmes don’t unravel why the belles of London society are in such danger, they’ll become the next victims.
70. After Bohemia: Monograph #2 (A Myrl Adler Norton Mystery) by Abbey Pen Baker
A series of events unfold sending Myrl and Faye searching for a truth they may well not want to face. Protecting the Sword of Mars took Irene’s life. Three decades later, the same men would easily kill again.
The problem is, Irene still holds puppet strings that reach back decades to rebellion and revolution in the failed heart of Bohemia. While Myrl and Faye are sent following a bloody trail of betrayal, Holmes and Watson are faced with an adversary as remarkable as the dead woman herself. And Faye has no idea who to trust.
69. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes by Michael Hardwick
A novelization of the hit film script by I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder. After an encounter with the Russian ballet when Holmes acquires his Stradivarius and Watson is deeply embarrassed, the story follows the consulting detective’s adventures that begin with a missing Belgian engineer and his nearly-drowned wife and continue via twenty-four canaries, seven Trappist monks and six midget acrobats to a confrontation, foreseen by Mycroft Holmes, with no less a phenomenon than the Loch Ness Monster! Dr. Watson is constantly humiliated in his unusual role as valet to Mr. and Mrs. Ashdown.
68. Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders (Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota #2) by Larry Millett
The year is 1896, and St. Paul’s magnificent Winter Carnival is under way when Holmes and Watson are summoned by the city’s most powerful man, railroad magnate James J. Hill. A wealthy young man disappears on the eve of his wedding—and his fiancée suspiciously discards her wedding dress.
After a grisly discovery in the carnival’s Ice Palace leads to a flurry of clues, Holmes is on the case. His pursuit of the murderer takes him through the highest echelons of St. Paul society and into cahoots with Shadwell Rafferty, a gregarious saloonkeeper and part-time private investigator. Soon Holmes, Watson, and Rafferty are embroiled in a perilous adventure that takes them from one frozen corner of the city to another and out onto the treacherous ice of the Mississippi River as they trail a cruel and ruthless killer.
67. Baker Street Beat: An Eclectic Collection of Sherlockian Scribblings by Dan Andriacco
66. Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography by Nick Rennison
He has been called a genius and a fraud, a hero and an addict. He advised kings in their glittering palaces, then disappeared into the darkest alleys of London’s criminal underworld. He was (and remains) a global icon, but he could pass his most ardent fan on the street without a flicker of recognition.
Who was this Sherlock Holmes? With an attention to detail that would make his subject envious, Nick Rennison gathers the clues of a life lived among the stars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from Oscar Wilde to Sigmund Freud, and uncovers startling, previously unknown information. How did a Cambridge drop-out and bit player on the London stage transform himself into a renowned “consulting detective”? Did he know the identity of “Jack the Ripper”?
65. The Trial of Sherlock Holmes by Leah Moore
Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective Sherlock Holmes returns in all-new adventures! Sherlock finds himself involved in a mystery that has him fighting for his very life and Watson putting the pieces together to either save his friend or condemn him!
Written by Leah Moore and John Reppion with reverence and a modern edge, artist Aaron Douglas completes the Victorian mood under the striking and iconic John Cassaday covers. Also contains bonus material such as script pages, annotations, a cover gallery, and a complete Sherlock Holmes short story by Arthur Conan Doyle with new illustrations.
64. Sherlock Holmes in the Peculiar Persecution of John Vincent Harden by Dan Andriacco
Tobacco millionaire John Vincent Harden has barely arrived in London when strange things start happening to him. The clerk at his hotel swears that Harden has checked out and taken his luggage with him. Then Harden receives a wire calling him home to his plantation in Kentucky – which it turns out was never sent.
63. The Man from Hell by Barrie Roberts
In 1886, wealthy philathropist Lord Backwater is found beaten to death on the grounds of his estate. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson must unravel the mystery by pitting their wits against a ruthless new enemy, taking them across the globe in search of the killer.
By turns both thrilling and daring, The Man From Hell braves dark new territories in the Holmes mythology and is an invaluable addition to the library of any Holmes fan.
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 his astonishing encounters with Martian invaders, the Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds’ greatest detective.
62. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of the Great Detective in India and Tibet by Jamyang Norbu
In 1891, the British public was horrified to learn that Sherlock Holmes had perished in a deadly struggle with the archcriminal Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Then, to its amazement, he reappeared two years later, informing a stunned Watson, ‘I traveled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa.’
Nothing has been known of those missing years until Jamyang Norbu’s discovery, in a rusting tin dispatch box in Darjeeling, of a flat packet carefully wrapped in waxed paper and neatly tied with stout twine. When opened the packet revealed Huree Chunder Mookerjee’s (Kipling’s Bengali spy and scholar) own account of his travels with Sherlock Holmes.
Now for the first time, we learn of Holmes’s brush with the Great Game and the world of Kim. We follow him north across the hot and duty plains of India to Simla, summer capital of the British Raj, and over the high passes to the vast emptiness of the Tibetan plateau. In the medieval splendor that is Lhasa, intrigue and black treachery stalk the shadows, and Sherlock Holmes confronts his greatest challenge.
61. The Seventh Bullet by Daniel D. Victor
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a new series of handsomely designed, long out-of-print detective stories. From the earliest days of Holmes’ career to his astonishing encounters with Martian invaders, the Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds’ greatest detective.
60. The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes by Lyndsay Faye
Inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, Edgar Award–finalist Lyndsay Faye has masterfully woven these quintessential characters into her own works of fiction—from her acclaimed debut novel, Dust and Shadow, to a series of short stories for the Strand Magazine, whose predecessor published the first Sherlock Holmes story in 1892.
The best of Faye’s Sherlockian tales, including two new works, are brought together in a collection that spans the character’s career, from self-taught upstart to lauded detective, both before and after he faked his own death over a Swiss waterfall in 1894.
In “The Lowther Park Mystery,” the unsociable Holmes is forced to attend a garden party at the request of his politician brother and improvises a bit of theater to foil a conspiracy against the government. “The Adventure of the Thames Tunnel” brings Holmes’s attention to the murder of a jewel thief in the middle of an underground railway passage.
59. The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by John Joseph Adams
The game is afoot! Night Shade Books is proud to present the fantastic adventures of the world’s greatest detective — mystery, fantasy, science fiction, horror, no genre can escape the esteemed detective’s needle-sharp intellect and intuition.
This reprint anthology showcases the best Holmes short fiction from the last 25 years, featuring stories by such visionaries as Stephen King, Neil Gaimen, Laura King, and many others.
58. Shadowfall: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes by Tracy Revels
When the sacred relics and mystical objects of London begin disappearing, Sherlock Holmes must call on more than his powers of deduction to solve a mystery that threatens the safety of the British Empire and Doctor Watsons mortal soul.
57. Watson’s Afghan Adventure – How Sherlock Holmes’ Dr. Watson Became an Army Doctor by Kieran McMullen
56. Sherlock Holmes: A Scandalous Affair by Christopher D. Abbott
Lieutenant Wilson is found dead at Reardon House, Dartford Kent. But was it a suicide or a murder?
When Inspector Hargreaves of the Kent Constabulary seeks Sherlock Holmes’ aid in uncovering the truth, Holmes and Watson become embroiled in an investigation leading to the heart of Westminster. Possibly to the Crown Herself.
Who is Sir Henry Wilburton? What is his connection to the late Professor Moriarty? Holmes must weave a dangerous path if he is to reach a successful conclusion. But with war a possible outcome of failure, the stakes are as high as they can get.
55. Dreaming Spies (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #13) by Laurie R. King
After a lengthy case that had the couple traipsing all over India, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are on their way to California to deal with some family business that Russell has been neglecting for far too long. Along the way, they plan to break up the long voyage with a sojourn in southern Japan.
The cruising steamer Thomas Carlyle is leaving Bombay, bound for Kobe. Though they’re not the vacationing types, Russell is looking forward to a change of focus—not to mention a chance to travel to a location Holmes has not visited before. The idea of the pair being on equal footing is enticing to a woman who often must race to catch up with her older, highly skilled husband.
Aboard the ship, intrigue stirs almost immediately. Holmes recognizes the famous clubman the Earl of Darley, whom he suspects of being an occasional blackmailer: not an unlikely career choice for a man richer in social connections than in pounds sterling. And then there’s the lithe, surprisingly fluent young Japanese woman who befriends Russell and quotes haiku. She agrees to tutor the couple in Japanese language and customs, but Russell can’t shake the feeling that Haruki Sato is not who she claims to be.
54. The Angel of the Opera by Sam Siciliano
Paris 1890. Sherlock Holmes is summoned across the English Channel to the famous Opera House.
Once there, he is challenged to discover the true motivations and secrets of the notorious phantom, who rules its depths with passion and defiance.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a new series of handsomely designed detective stories. The Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds’ greatest detective.
53. Sherlock Holmes and the Irish Rebels by Kieran McMullen
It is early 1916 and the world is at war. Sherlock Holmes is well into his spy persona as Altamont following the capture of the German spy Von Bork at the opening of the Great War.
Watson is called to London by Mycroft Holmes and is asked to join Sherlock, who has infiltrated the Irish Volunteers. War within the United Kingdom could deal a decisive blow to the war effort and Holmes must find out the rebels plans, and if possible, stop the rebellion which appears imminent. He has need of Watson once again.
52. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Stalwart Companions by H. Paul Jeffers
Recently discovered in the basement of the New York Police Department, The Stalwart Companions is one of Holmes’ most exciting and unusual chronicles.
51. The Patient’s Eyes by David Pirie
As a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle, famously studied under the pioneering forensic detective Dr. Joseph Bell. Taking this as a starting point, author David Pirie has woven a compelling thriller which partners Bell (widely believed to be the model for Sherlock Holmes himself) and Doyle as innovators in criminal investigation, exploring the strange underworld of violence and sexual hypocrisy running below the surface of the Victorian era.
When the impoverished young Arthur Doyle opens his first medical practice, he is puzzled by the symptoms presented by Heather Grace, a sweet young woman whose parents have died tragically several years before. Heather has a strange eye complaint, but is also upset by visions of a phantom bicyclist who vanishes as soon as he is followed.
This enigma, however, is soon overshadowed as Doyle finds himself embroiled in more threatening events-including the murder of a rich Spanish businessman-that call for the advice of the eminent Dr Bell. But despite coming to Doyle’s aid, Dr Bell dismisses the murder of Senor Garcia as a rather unimportant diversion from the incident which Bell considers to have real criminal implications: the matter of the patient’s eyes and the solitary cyclist.
50. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Scroll of the Dead 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 to stop 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 of evil.
49. Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Cold-Served Revenge by Petr Macek
Europe 1911. The Great Powers vie for influence and are divided by political quarrels. War is in the air. For retired detective Sherlock Holmes, who has just suffered a coronary, these distant matters are of little concern. But politics are about to turn his quiet country life upside down.
Mycroft, the detective’s politician brother, has asked Holmes to investigate the murder of a powerful industrialist and the mysterious kidnapping of the King’s nephew. Could these two cases be connected? Thus the legendary detective and his old friend Watson set out on an all-new adventure, one that will take them from the canals of Venice to an ancient castle in the Scottish plains. It’s an adventure they could hardly have expected as they near the ripe old age of sixty. Will Holmes lose a lifelong friend? And which villain from Holmes’s past might want to start a world war…?
48. The Final Page of Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes and the American Literati Book 1) by Daniel D. Victor
When misadventure led a schoolboy in London to employment at Baker Street, few could have guessed where his introduction to Sherlock Holmes would lead.
47. The Papers of Sherlock Holmes Volume 1 and 2 by David Marcum
Spanning events over thirty years, The Papers of Sherlock Holmes relates narratives of Holmes and Watson’s days in Baker Street, as well as particulars of Holmes’s supposed retirement.
Follow along as The Master and his Boswell travel from the streets of London to the Kent countryside, to Oxford and Sussex. Written in traditional canonical style, these stories provide fresh details of Holmes’s world. Join us as we climb the seventeen steps to the Baker Street sitting room, where Holmes and Watson prepare to begin their next adventure.
46. Sherlock Holmes: The Pearl of Death and Other Early Stories by Gregg Rosenquist
Ten All New Early Holmes/Watson Adventures Discovered. Recently, a stash of unpublished stories, written by Doctor John Watson, assistant to the legendary Consulting Detective, Sherlock Holmes, were discovered – hidden within the secret corners and shadows of the famous flat at 221b Baker Street.
45. The Egyptian Curse (Enoch Hale #3) by Dan Andriacco
Determined to solve this case without the help of his friend Sherlock Holmes, Hale launches and investigation that brings him into contact with Leonard and Virginia Woolf, bohemian writers and publishers; P.G. Wodehouse, creator of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster; Howard Carter, discoverer of King Tut’s tomb; and one of the greatest mystery writers of all time.
A second murder sparks journalistic speculation of a curse related to Alfie’s time in Egypt as a competitor of Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarvon. Hale doesn’t buy that, but he doesn’t come up with a better solution until it is almost too late. And in the end, it is once again Sherlock Holmes who puts it all together. This exciting historical mystery concludes the Enoch Hale – Sherlock Holmes trilogy that began with The Amateur Executioner and continued with The Poisoned Penman.
44. Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of Grinning Cat by Joseph W. Svec III
Time is running out!When the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, and The Mad Hatter turn up at 221-B Baker Street to enlist the help of Sherlock Holmes in locating Alice who is missing from Wonderland, and Lewis Carroll himself who is also nowhere to be found, there begins an adventure more stranger and curious than anything Sherlock has ever encountered.
43. Sherlock Holmes and the Sword of Osman by Tim Symonds
It’s 1906. Far from England, the Ottoman Empire ruled by the despotic Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid 11 is on the verge of imploding. Rival Great Powers, especially Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany, sit watching like crows on a fence, ready to rush in to carve up the vast territories, menacing England’s vital overland routes to her Indian possessions.
At his medical practice in London’s Marylebone Watson receives a mystifying telegram. It’s from Holmes. ‘Dear Watson, if you can throw physic to the dogs for an hour or two I would appreciate meeting at the stone cross at Charing Cross railway station tomorrow noon. I have an assignation with a bird lover at the Stork & Ostrich House in the Regents Park which has excited my curiosity. Yrs. S.H.’
42. Mrs. Hudson in New York by Barry S. Brown
Accompanied by Holmes and Watson, Mrs. Hudson crosses the ocean to attend the wedding of her cousin’s daughter. They disembark to discover that the young lady’s fiancée, a pitcher for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, stands accused of an attempt on the life of JP Morgan and the death of his aide.
A self-declared enemy of Morgan and the robber barons, the ballplayer ran from the scene of the crime and,when captured, was found inpossession of a gun with two spent cartridges, the same number and caliber as thatused in the attack. Before a wedding can be held, the unacknowledged sage of Baker Street will lead Holmes and Watson along a path of investigation taking them from JP Morgan’s mansion to the gambling dens of New York’s Tenderloin.
With the enthusiastic assistance of Samuel Clemens, the reluctant assistance of Morgan, and the cautious assistance of a leader in the African Broadway community, they will identify the financier’s attacker, frustrate effortsto corrupt the game ofbaseball, and rescue the prospective bride and groom from would-be assassins before returning finally to the comparative quiet of 221B Baker Street.
41. Sherlock Holmes and the July Crisis by Arthur Conan Doyle, James Carlopio
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is brought back to life in this new story created by Dr. Carlopio using the words of the original master in his unique editorial fiction method.
The incomparable Sherlock Holmes is involved in the build-up to WWI … we have a stolen treaty, an attempted robbery of millions of French Gold, German spies and a brush with the incomparable Irene Adler all within the historically accurate context of the July Crisis.
40. Holmes and Watson: An American Adventure by David Ruffle
Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. Or did she? Holmes and Watson, while in America find themselves face to face with Lizzie Borden when two fresh axe murders rock Fall River society. Is Lizzie to blame?
39. Sherlock Holmes and The House of Pain by Stephen Seitz
A missionary woman has disappeared in Spitalfields, one of London’s most dangerous districts. When Sherlock Holmes in called on to find her, he discovers enormous, highly intelligent rats have made their home under the streets of London. Holmes is forced to confront the horrors of his past and science gone mad.
38. Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lyndsay Faye
As England’s greatest specialist in criminal detection, Sherlock Holmes is unwavering in his quest to capture the killer responsible for terrifying London’s East End. He hires an “unfortunate” known as Mary Ann Monk, the friend of a fellow streetwalker who was one of the Ripper’s earliest victims; and he relies heavily on the steadfast and devoted Dr. John H. Watson.
When Holmes himself is wounded in Whitechapel during an attempt to catch the savage monster, the popular press launches an investigation of its own, questioning the great detective’s role in the very crimes he is so fervently struggling to prevent. Stripped of his credibility, Holmes is left with no choice but to break every rule in the desperate race to find the madman known as “the Knife” before it is too late.
In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles onto him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes.
Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern, twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. They are soon called to Wales to help Scotland Yard find the kidnapped daughter of an American senator, a case of international significance with clues that dip deep into Holmes’s past.
Full of brilliant deduction, disguises, and danger, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, the first book of the Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes mysteries, is “remarkably beguiling” (The Boston Globe).
36. The Seven-Percent Solution (Nicholas Meyer Holmes Pastiches #1) by Nicholas Meyer
First discovered and then painstakingly edited and annotated by Nicholas Meyer, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution related the astounding and previously unknown collaboration of Sigmund Freud with Sherlock Holmes, as recorded by Holmes’s friend and chronicler, Dr. John H. Watson.
In addition to its breathtaking account of their collaboration on a case of diabolic conspiracy in which the lives of millions hang in the balance, it reveals such matters as the real identity of the heinous professor Moriarty, the dark secret shared by Sherlock and his brother Mycroft Holmes, and the detective’s true whereabouts during the Great Hiatus, when the world believed him to be dead.
35. The Untold Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Luke Benjamen Kuhns
In the year 1933, an elderly Dr. John Watson is looking back over his life and his time spent with his brilliant friend and master of deduction Sherlock Holmes. He writes in a letter to the listener that he has assembled a list of seven untold adventures that span from his and Sherlock’s early years until the time of Sherlock’s retirement. Watson explains that he wishes to leave, not only his family, but the public with a final compilation of adventures that he and Sherlock shared while he is still able.
These Untold Adventures of Sherlock Holmes will engage Holmes fans from all over, and will bring them deeper into the world of Sherlock Holmes and the complexities within.
34. The West End Horror by Nicholas Meyer
March 1895. London. A month of strange happenings in the West End. First there is the bizarre murder of theater critic Jonathan McCarthy. Then the lawsuit against the Marquess of Queensberry for libel; the public is scandalized. Next, the ingenue at the Savoy is discovered with her throat slashed. And a police surgeon disappears, taking two corpses with him.
Some of the theater district’s most fashionable and creative luminaries have been involved: a penniless stage critic and writer named Bernard Shaw; Ellen Terry, the gifted and beautiful actress; a suspicious box office clerk named Bram Stoker; an aging matinee idol, Henry Irving; an unscrupulous publisher calling himself Frank Harris; and a controversial wit by the name of Oscar Wilde.
Scotland Yard is mystified by what appear to be unrelated cases, but to Sherlock Holmes the matter is elementary: a maniac is on the loose. His name is Jack.
33. Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula by Loren D. Estleman
After a mysterious schooner runs aground in an English harbor with no human passengers — only the dead captain, drained of blood — a series of bizarre nocturnal crimes takes place in London. It can only be the work of Count Dracula, and only one man can save the city: the world’s greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes.
32. The Sherlockian by Graham Moore
Then in 1901, just as abruptly as Conan Doyle had “murdered” Holmes in “The Final Problem,” he resurrected him. Though the writer kept detailed diaries of his days and work, Conan Doyle never explained this sudden change of heart. After his death, one of his journals from the interim period was discovered to be missing, and in the decades since, has never been found…. Or has it?
When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he’s about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: the missing diary. But when the world’s leading Doylean scholar is found murdered in his hotel room, it is Harold-using wisdom and methods gleaned from countless detective stories-who takes up the search, both for the diary and for the killer.
31. The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr
The best-selling author of the Alienist series returns with a chilling elaboration on the Sherlock Holmes canon, as the famed detective investigates a pair of gruesome murders, which cast an otherworldly shadow as far as Queen Victoria herself.It all begins familiarly enough: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are summoned to the aid of Queen Victoria in Scotland by an encrypted telegram from Holmes’ brother, Mycroft, a royal advisor. Rushed northward on a royal train they soon learn of the brutal killings of two of the Queen’s servants who had been working on the renovation of the famous and forbidding Royal Palace of Holyrood.
Told with his unique feel for historical detail and the architecture of human evil, Caleb Carr’s brilliant new offering takes the Conan Doyle tradition to remarkable new heights.
30. Shadows Over Baker Street by Michael Reaves
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is among the most famous literary figures of all time. For more than a hundred years, his adventures have stood as imperishable monuments to the ability of human reason to penetrate every mystery, solve every puzzle, and punish every crime.
For nearly as long, the macabre tales of H. P. Lovecraft have haunted readers with their nightmarish glimpses into realms of cosmic chaos and undying evil. But what would happen if Conan Doyle’s peerless detective and his allies were to find themselves faced with mysteries whose solutions lay not only beyond the grasp of logic, but of sanity itself?
In this collection of all-new, all-original tales, twenty of today’s most cutting-edge writers provide their answers to that burning question.
29. Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles by Kim Newman
A spin-off from Titan’s highly successful Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series, The Hound of the D’Urbervilles sees acclaimed novelist Kim Newman (Anno Dracula) take on the fiendish Professor Moriarty.
28. My Dearest Holmes by Rohase Piercy
Was this the real Final Problem? The ‘love that dare not speak its name’ was a dangerous thing under the oppressions of Victorian society – especially for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
First published in 1988, ‘My Dearest Holmes’ redefined the bond between the famous consulting detective and his faithful sidekick. Some were outraged: others were overjoyed.
William S. Baring-Gould (1913–67) was a devoted Sherlockian whose work on Sherlockian chronology and biography culminated, in 1967, in the publication of THE ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES.
Prior to that, however, in 1962, he published the SHERLOCK HOLMES OF BAKER STREET, the first major biography of Sherlock Holmes, subtitled ‘A Life of the World’s First Consulting Detective’.
The biography has been unavailable in a modern edition for many years, and it is a great pleasure, therefore, to offer to modern-day Sherlockians this edition in celebration of the anniversary of its first publication.
26. The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John H. Watson, M.D. by Nicholas Meyer
Located by a computer in the bowels of a major university, this missing manuscript by Dr. John Watson, the biographer of Sherlock Holmes, reveals for the first time a hitherto unknown episode in the life of the Great Detective.
The year is 1891, Paris is the capital of the western world, and its opera house is full of surprises. First and by no means least is the sudden reappearance of the great love of Holmes’s life, an accomplished singer from Hoboken, New Jersey. Second is the series of seemingly bizarre accidents—each more sinister than the last—allegedly arranged by the “Opera Ghost,” an opponent who goes by many names and is more than equal to Holmes.
Alone in a strange and spectacular city, with none of his normal resources, Holmes is commissioned to protect a vulnerable young soprano, whose beautiful voice obsesses a creature no one believes is real, but whose jealousy is lethal.
25. The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Adrian Conan Doyle
From the son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one of America’s greatest mystery writers, John Dickson Carr, comes twelve riveting tales based on incidents or elements of the unsolved cases of Sherlock Holmes.
24. The Darlington Substitution by Hugh Ashton
The deed box of Dr. John Watson, entrusted by him over a century ago to Cox & Co. of Charing Cross, and which made its way late last year to Hugh Ashton in Kamakura, Japan, continues to yield treasure.
The box proved to have a false bottom, under which lay the manuscript of a full-length adventure of Sherlock Holmes, in which the great detective needs all his cunning and detective powers to unravel the mysteries at Hareby Hall.
23. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by Loren D. Estleman
Sherlock Holmes has already encountered the evil young hedonist Edward Hyde, and knew he was strangely connected with Henry Jekyll, the respectable young doctor. It was not until the Queen herself requested it, however, that Holmes was officially on the case of the savage murder of Sir Danvers Crew. Here, then is the account of that devilish crime as recorded by Dr Watson.
Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, have stirred the wrath of a murderous secret organization bent on infiltrating the government. Now they are separated and on the run, wanted by the police, and pursued across the Continent by a ruthless enemy with limitless resources and powerful connections.
Unstoppable together, Russell and Holmes will have to survive this time apart, maintaining contact only by means of coded messages and cryptic notes. But has the couple made a fatal mistake by separating, making themselves easier targets for the shadowy government agents sent to silence them?
A hermit with a mysterious past and a beautiful young female doctor with a secret, a cruelly scarred flyer and an obsessed man of the cloth: Everyone Russell and Holmes meet could either speed their safe reunion or betray them to their enemies—in the most complex, shocking, and deeply personal case of their career.
21. The Detective and The Woman: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes by Amy Thomas
Irene Adler, American opera singer and the one woman who outsmarted Sherlock Holmes, finds herself a widow at thirty-two, wealthy but emotionally broken.
At the same time, Sherlock Holmes finds himself unable to return to England after faking his death at Reichenbach Falls and is drawn into an investigation of two men with designs on a woman they call Miss A, who is none other than Irene Adler herself. The Detective and The Woman throw their lot in together to uncover a dangerous plot with implications that stretch across the Atlantic. In the process, they meet legendary inventor Thomas Edison and experience life in Florida at the turn of the 20th century.
20. Secrets From the Deed Box of John H. Watson MD by Hugh Ashton
The deed box of Dr. Watson, presented to me some time ago by a friend who rescued it from the archives of a London bank, continues to produce treasures. The stories in this collection, which I have entitled Secrets from the Deed Box of John H Watson MD, all represent some aspect of Holmes and his adventures that has previously been undiscovered. In many ways these are (with the possible exception of The Bradfield Push, which Watson left unpublished for personal reasons) somewhat darker in tone than the stories that he did release to the public and publish in the Strand magazine.
For some reason, Watson failed to date most of Holmes’ adventures, and we must therefore make a guess at the chronology of these stories through their allusions to other cases.
The first of these tales, The Conk-Singleton Forgery Case, is mentioned by Watson. He gives no other details in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, and the story was presumably withheld from the public on account of Holmes’brush with the police as described here. The story provides excellent examples of Holmes’ skill in deduction from seemingly trivial observations, as well as details of his methods of working a case.
The next story, The Strange Case of James Phillimore, is likewise mentioned in passing by Watson. James Phillimore is described as stepping into his house to retrieve his umbrella, never to be seen more in this world. This brief description implies a somewhat supernatural twist to things, but the truth of the matter is even more surprising.
In The Enfield Rope, we enter unknown territory.Watson never alluded to this case. The principals here were far too well-known to Watson’s public to allow of this case’s publication, even with pseudonyms, and re¬spect for the British Establishment would have restrained Watson in this instance. Holmes’ sense of the dramatic is shown here, and his admiration and liking for a member of a part of society that was often shunned at that time shows a human, more attractive side to Holmes than is often portrayed by Watson.
The Bradfield Push is an early case of Sherlock Holmes, where Watson loses both his heart and his watch. Holmes can retrieve one, but not the other.
19. A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin
It is 1947, and the long-retired Sherlock Holmes, now 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse with his housekeeper and her young son. He tends to his bees, writes in his journal, and grapples with the diminishing powers of his mind.
A novel of exceptional grace and literary sensitivity, A Slight Trick of the Mind is a brilliant imagining of our greatest fictional detective and a stunning inquiry into the mysteries of human connection.
18. Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space by Isaac Asimov
Sherlock Holmes, in the form of a human, extraterrestrial, robot, dog, toy, and elderly man solves a series of baffling mysteries.
17. Kissing Sherlock Holmes by T.D. McKinney
“My dear Watson, how does one go about kissing a woman?”… Sherlock Holmes’ question leads to a lesson Watson never expected to teach. And feelings he never thought to explore. A single kiss alters Watson’s world while the announcement of Holmes’ upcoming marriage sets an odd fear in his heart.
16. Sherlock Holmes: The Stuff of Nightmares by James Lovegrove
It’s the autumn of 1890, and a spate of bombings has hit London. The newspapers are full of fevered speculation about anarchists, anti-monarchists and Fenians.
But one man suspects an even more sinister hand behind the violence. Sherlock Holmes believes Professor Moriarty is orchestrating a nationwide campaign of terror, but to what end? At the same time, a bizarrely garbed figure has been spotted on the rooftops and in the grimy back alleys of the capital. He moves with the extraordinary agility of a latter-day Spring-heeled Jack. He possesses weaponry and armor of unprecedented sophistication.
He is known only by the name Baron Cauchemar, and he appears to be a scourge of crime and villainy. But is this masked man truly the force for good that he seems? Is he connected somehow to the bombings? Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. Watson are about to embark on one of their strangest and most exhilarating adventures yet.
15. Sherlock Holmes: The Vanishing Man by Philip Purser-Hallard
It is 1896, and Sherlock Holmes is investigating a self-proclaimed psychic who disappeared from a locked room, in front of several witnesses.
While attempting to prove the existence of telekinesis to a scientific society, an alleged psychic, Kellway, vanished before their eyes during the experiment. With a large reward at stake, Holmes is convinced Kellway is a charlatan—or he would be, if he had returned to claim his prize.
14. A Three Book Problem: A Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery by Vicki Delany
It’s a crisp, early October weekend, and business is slowing down as fall descends at the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and adjacent Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room. Wealthy philanthropist and prominent Sherlockian David Masterson has rented Suffolk Gardens House, where he plans to entertain his friends in a traditional English country house weekend.
As the chosen caterers, Jayne Wilson and Gemma Doyle get to work preparing lavish meals and setting up Sherlockian books and props for entertainment. Meanwhile, police detective Ryan Ashburton has taken time away from his duties to assist in the kitchen. It quickly becomes apparent that David’s guests don’t like each other–or their host. Plus, some of them aren’t even acquainted with the adventures of the Great Detective.
13. The Disappearance of Alistair Ainsworth (The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries Book 3) by Leonard Goldberg
Joanna and the Watsons receive an unexpected visitor to 221b Baker Street during a nocturnal storm. A rain-drenched Dr. Alexander Verner arrives with a most harrowing tale.
Verner has just returned from an unsettling trip to see a patient who he believes is being held against his will. Joanna quickly realizes that Verner’s patient is a high-ranking Englishman who the Germans have taken captive to pry vital information about England’s military strategies for the Great War. The man is revealed to be Alistair Ainsworth, a cryptographer involved in the highest level of national security.
The police are frantic to find Ainsworth before the Germans can use him to decode all of England’s undeciphered messages. Ainsworth must be found at all costs and Joanna and the Watsons might be the only ones who can connect the clues to find him.
12. Sherlock Holmes: The Patchwork Devil by Cavan Scott
It is 1919, and while the world celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Holmes and Watson are called to a grisly discovery.
A severed hand has been found on the bank of the Thames, a hand belonging to a soldier who supposedly died in the trenches two years previously. But the hand is fresh, and shows signs that it was recently amputated. So how has it ended up back in London two years after its owner was killed in France?
Warned by Sherlock’s brother Mycroft to cease their investigation, and only barely surviving an attack by a superhuman creature, Holmes and Watson begin to suspect a conspiracy at the very heart of the British government.
11. Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Doctor Moreau by Guy Adams
Following the trail of several corpses seemingly killed by wild animals, Holmes and Watson stumble upon the experiments of Doctor Moreau.
Moreau, through vivisection and crude genetic engineering is creating animal hybrids, determined to prove the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin.
10. Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage (MYCROFT HOLMES Book 3) by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Anna Waterhouse
It is 1873, and as the economies of Europe threaten to crumble, Mycroft Holmes finds himself in service to the Crown once again. A distant relative of Queen Victoria has been slain by the Fire Four Eleven killer, a serial murderer who leaves no mark upon his victims, only a mysterious calling card. Meanwhile, Sherlock has already taken it upon himself to solve the case, as his interest in the criminal mind grows into an obsession.
Mycroft begrudgingly allows Sherlock to investigate, as Ai Lin–the woman he is still in love with–needs his aid. Her fiancé has been kidnapped, and the only man who might know his fate is a ruthless arms dealer with a reputation for killing those who cross him. Mycroft persuades his friend Cyrus Douglas to help find the young man, but Douglas himself is put in harm’s way.
As Sherlock travels the country on the hunt for the Fire Four Eleven murderer, both he and Mycroft will discover that the greed of others is at the root of the evil they are trying to unearth.
9. Holmes takes a Holiday: A Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery by Anna Elliott, Charles Veley
May, 1900. The Baker Street team heads to Lake Windermere, Victorian England’s most fashionable vacation spot. But they have no plans to relax and mingle with socialites. They are searching for Lady Belinda, the missing wife of Sir Clarence, a prominent local barrister who has been helping Holmes in his fight against the Syndicate, an evil crime ring led by corrupt policemen.
Amy Thiel, another ally against the Syndicate, is also missing, and Holmes believes the cases may be connected. Unwilling to stay idle, Amy’s sweetheart, Gregson, has come to Windermere to help. It’s up to Holmes, his team, Gregson, and the contentious Lestrade, who has also joined the effort, to find Lady Belinda and Amy before it’s too late.
The closer the team gets to the truth, the more perilous their mission becomes. Will they act in time to save their missing friends and prevent more needless deaths? Or will all their efforts vanish beneath the cold and unfeeling waves of Windermere Lake?
8. The Devil and Sherlock Holmes by David Grann
From the bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon comes this “gripping” (The Miami Herald) and “hilarious” (EW) collection of true crime mysteries about people whose obsessions propel them into unfathomable and often deadly circumstances.
Whether David Grann is investigating a mysterious murder, tracking a chameleon-like con artist, or hunting an elusive giant squid, he has proven to be one of the most gifted reporters and storytellers of his generation.
In The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, Grann takes the reader around the world, revealing a gallery of rogues and heroes with their own particular fixations who show that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
7. The Consulting Detective Trilogy Part I: University by Darlene A. Cypser
It was some time before Sherlock Holmes recovered from the events of late 1871. Physically, it took many months; mentally, it took many years. He was bound by both a promise to the living and a commitment to honour the dead, and being so bound he set the full force of his will to rebuilding the shattered pieces of his life. Yet some times will alone is not enough.
6. A Case of Witchcraft: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes by Joe Revill
A tale of witchcraft in the Northern Isles, in which some long-concealed secrets are revealed – concerning not only the Dark Arts but also the Great Detective himself.
5. Sherlock Holmes in Orbit by Mike Resnick
4. Prisoner of the Devil by Michael Hardwick
Not even the last-hope pleas of Alfred Dreyfus’ wife can move Sherlock Holmes to take on the case of the unjustly accused artillery officer convicted of treason–until the aging Queen Victoria issues a direct command.
3. The Breath of God by Guy Adams
When several leading society figures begin acting out of character, Holmes is enlisted on an investigation that will see him team up with famed ghost hunter Thomas Carnacki, and the famous occultist Aleister Crowley.
2. A House of Mirrors (Mrs Hudson & Sherlock Holmes Book 1) by Liz Hedgecock
When Nell Villiers’ policeman husband vanishes on a routine case, her life is wrecked. Placed under protection by Inspector Lestrade, Nell is ripped from her old life and her own secret police work. Instead she must live as a widow, Mrs Hudson, in a safe house: 221B Baker Street.
Two years on, with the case still unsolved, Nell vows to defy Lestrade and use her skills to discover what happened. She takes a lodger to cover her tracks; a young man called Sherlock Holmes. Before long, he is working on her case – and Nell is assisting him.
‘It’s always been fun before – but now the police are the enemy…’
1. The Moor (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #4) by Laurie R. King
In the eerie wasteland of Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes summons his devoted wife and partner, Mary Russell, from her studies at Oxford to aid the investigation of a death and some disturbing phenomena of a decidedly supernatural origin.
Through the mists of the moor there have been sightings of a spectral coach made of bones carrying a woman long-ago accused of murdering her husband–and of a hound with a single glowing eye.
Returning to the scene of one of his most celebrated cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes and Russell investigate a mystery darker and more unforgiving than the moors themselves, in Laurie R. King’s The Moor.
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Photo Credit: Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments
