A Study in Crimson (2020)

The first of two Holmes books by Robert J. Harris cleverly set during the era of the Universal Basil Rathbone films.

SHERLOCK HOLMES RETURNS!

LONDON, 1942. A killer going by the name of 'Crimson Jack' is stalking the wartime streets of London, murdering women on the exact dates of the infamous Jack the Ripper killings of 1888. Has the Ripper somehow returned from the grave? Is the self-styled Crimson Jack a descendant of the original Jack or merely a madman obsessed with those notorious killings?

In desperation Scotland Yard turn to Sherlock Holmes, the world's greatest detective. Surely he is the one man who can sift fact from legend and track down Crimson Jack before he completes his tally of death. As Holmes and the faithful Watson tread the blacked out streets of London, death waits just around the corner.

Inspired by the classic film series from Universal Pictures starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, which updated Sherlock Holmes to the 1940s, this is a brand new adventure from the acclaimed author of The Thirty-One Kings, Castle Macnab and the Artie Conan Doyle Mysteries.

Title: A Study in Crimson
Author: Robert J. Harris
Year: 2020
Publisher: Polygon
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1979)

A Holmes-Ripper pastiche with the most shocking solution of them all! First published in hardcover in 1978. This is the first Ballantine paperback.

LONDON 1888: 

MANIAC STALKS WHITECHAPEL!

Three female paupers of dubious morals are gruesomely murdered. Their corpses are horribly mutilated. Instantly, London is thrust into a state of terror. A monstrous ghoul is prowling the night, untouchable by Scotland Yard. 

Baffled and desperate, the yard turns to Sherlock Holmes. Holmes challenges this diabolical adversary in the most extraordinary case of his career.

Title: The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
Author: Michael Dibdin
Year: 1979
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

An East Wind Coming (1979)

This Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack The Ripper adventure by sci-fi author Arthur Byron Cover is set two million years in the future. The stunning cover art is by legendary fantasy artist Boris Vallejo.

IN THE GOLDEN CITY OF THE GODS, THE LEGENDS LIVE

It was two million years in the future and they were immortal––Holmes, Watson, all the Great Ones. With nothing to master but limitless Time. 

But that was before the killing began, before the world's greatest sleuth discovered that history's most heinous criminal was also "alive" and steeping the East End of the Eternal City in the blood of goddesses. 

Somehow they had to stop him from wielding his antimatter blade. But the puzzle's solution would be less than elementary––and much more bizarre than even Holmes could envision––for an Eternity to come.

Title: An East Wind Coming
Author: Arthur Byron Cover
Year: 1979
Publisher: Berkley Books
Purchase: Amazon.

Murder By Decree (1979)

Novelization of the 1979 film starring Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes and James Mason as Dr. Watson. A good Holmes vs. Jack The Ripper tale incorporating a popular Royal conspiracy theory of the day. Recently released as a Special Edition Blu-ray.

THE MOST INFAMOUS MURDERER IN THE ENTIRE CENTURY––

He terrorized a city.

He committed acts of unspeakable horror.

He ruled the shadows and the back alley.

He was called Jack the Ripper––

THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS INVESTIGATOR OF ALL TIME––

He commanded boundless admiration.

He possessed ruthless intelligence.

He pursued his suspects with unfailing instincts.

He was Sherlock Holmes.

Title: Murder By Decree

Author: Robert Weverka

Year: 1979

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Purchase: Amazon | Amazon.co.uk

A Study In Terror (1966)

One of the more novel novelizations is this adaptation the 1966 film A Study in Terror written by none other than Ellery Queen. The film starred John Neville as Holmes and Donald Houston as Dr. Watson and was released on this day in 1965.

SOLVED!  

The savage killer roamed the dark streets and alleys of London. No woman was safe from his swift, gory attacks as murder followed murder. No man could stop the menace or even guess the identity of the brute called . . . 

JACK THE RIPPER 

No man . . .  except Sherlock Holmes. 

Now it can be told––in this gripping modern thriller. Sherlock Holmes did stalk Jack the Ripper in 1888, and through a quirk of fate that is a mystery in itself, Ellery Queen follows in his footsteps in 1966. The two greatest detectives of all time match wits with each other––and together arrive at a solution that will stun you. 

WHO WAS JACK THE RIPPER? read the answer in this brand new, full authentic Sherlock Holmes adventure, by today's greatest living mystery writer, 

ELLERY QUEEN

Title: A Study in Terror
Author: Ellery Queen
Year: 1966
Publisher: Lancer
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Undead Client (2019)

A new final case of Sherlock Holmes by M. J. Downing. Sounds like Jack the Ripper is also in the mix.

Sherlock Holmes' devoted friend Dr John Watson takes the lead in a case so bizarre that it could only be revealed after Holmes’ death. 

Sherlock Holmes has only been deceased a month when Dr. John Watson, still grieving, recounts his final case with Holmes. A terrifying mystery, it sends Watson and Holmes into the dark reaches of London’s back alleys – and the human soul. 

It begins when Anne Prescott, a lovely Scottish nurse, begs Sherlock Holmes and Watson to help her find her fiancé and her sister, who have gone missing in the teeming streets of London. Immediately, Watson feels an attraction to her that shocks him. Newly married to Mary, and deeply in love with her, he struggles to put Anne out of his mind. 

As Watson and Holmes dig into the slums and sewers of London looking for Anne’s fiancé and sister, they uncover a deadly web of bloody murders, horrific medical experiments, and even voodoo ritual that threatens not only London, but the entire British empire, and beyond. 

Watson must call on his unique combination of expertise in the medical sciences, as well as his military training to stop this killer before London – and Anne -- are lost to the killer’s bloody plan. But time is short and the mystery ever more complex. How can he manage his feelings for Anne? What about his loyalty to Mary? He can’t have both.

Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Undead Client
Author: M. J. Downing
Year: 2019
Publisher: Burns and Lea Media
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The Whitechapel Horrors (1992)

An epic Holmes novels that not only tells the story of Jack the Ripper, but also encompasses into its timeline canonical adventures such as The Hound of the Baskervilles. An ambitious and very well done Holmes pastiche.

Grotesque murders are being committed on the streets of Whitechapel. Sherlock Holmes comes to believe the murders are the skillful work of one man, a man who earns the gruesome epithet of Jack the Ripper. As the investigation proceeds, Holmes realizes that the true identity of the Ripper puts much more at stake than merely catching a killer––the most fundamental British institutions may very well be threatened. He is faced with the most difficult decision he has ever made, a crisis of conscience that shakes him to his very core. Holmes must decide where his allegiance truly lies––with his code of honor as a detective and champion of justice, or with his strong feelings of patriotism and love of England. 

The Whitechapel Horror is vintage Holmes, a ripping good mystery worthy of the great detective and his eminent creator.

Title: The Whitechapel Horror
Author: Edward B. Hanna
Year: 1992 (paperback published 1993)
Publisher: Carroll & Graf
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The Adventure of the New York Ripper (2013)

Holmes and Watson are on the trail of Jack The Ripper in 1893 New York.

Terror is walking the streets of 1893 New York City at night, taking the lives of women in a horrible fashion reminiscent of the heinous murders of Jack the Ripper in London five years earlier. A copycat “Jack the Ripper”? Or is it possible that the infamous killer himself, never captured by the London police, has made his way to the streets of New York City? 

In The Adventure of The New York Ripper, we are, in addition to an outstanding mystery, presented with a history of the horrific Jack the Ripper crimes and with a brand-new theory regarding the commission of those terrible murders. A theory arising out of data of the crimes themselves and from the deductive powers of the one and only Sherlock Holmes.

Title: The Adventure of the New York Ripper
Author: Philip J. Carraher
Year: 2013
Publisher: Infinity Publishing
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Sherlock Holmes and the Body Snatchers (2014)

Dean P. Turnbloom's follow-up to his Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire finds Holmes and Watson in 1888 Manhattan.

With Baron Barlucci escaping London on his way to New York with Abigail Drake, Dr. Watson is certain they've seen the last of the Whitechapel Vampire; Sherlock Holmes isn't so sure. They soon learn the Animus Lacuna, barque of the now infamous Barlucci, was reported lost at sea and a longboat carrying the body of Abigail Drake was recovered by Newfoundland fishermen. 

But when Inspector Andrews of Scotland Yard arrives to retrieve her remains, the body suddenly disappears and Sherlock Holmes is called in to investigate. Sherlock Holmes and the Body Snatchers takes up the story of the Whitechapel Vampire in New York, where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson meet, work with, and sometimes work against, New York detectives Mylo Strumm and Michael Murray. Holmes and Watson are on a quest to find the missing body of Miss Abigail Drake, while Strumm and Murray are investigating a string of unusual murders that bear a striking resemblance to the 'Ripper' murders in London. 

Fast-paced and well-researched, Sherlock Holmes and the Body Snatchers sequel to Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire takes the famous detective out of his familiar London environs and places him in 1888 Manhattan, a place of sin and vice, rivaling the worst London has to offer. Holmes chases his nemesis while he struggles with the enigma Barlucci presents.

Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Body Snatchers
Author: Dean P. Tunbloom
Year: 2014
Publisher: MX Publishing
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Dust and Shadow (2009)

Another Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper adventure, this one from Sherlockian and Ripperologist Lyndsay Faye.

From the gritty streets of nineteenth century London, the loyal and courageous Dr. Watson offers a tale unearthed after generations of lore: the harrowing story of Sherlock Holmes’s attempt to hunt down Jack the Ripper. 

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. 

Title: Dust and Shadow
Author: Lyndsay Faye
Year: 2009
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Purchase: Amazon.

Murder By Decree (1979)

British novelization of the 1979 film starring Christopher Plummer as Holmes and James Mason as Watson. A U.S. edition was published by Ballantine Books.

THE JACK THE RIPPER MURDERS 

Sherlock Holmes lifts the veil of secrecy, corruption and terror at the heart of the throne of England itself. Clue by clue...murder by murder.

Title: Murder By Decree

Author: Robert Weverka

Year: 1979

Publisher: Corgi

Purchase: Amazon.co.uk

Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (1963)

U.S. paperback edition of William S. Baring-Gould's fictional biography of Sherlock Holmes. The U.S. hardcover was released in 1962.

"The greatest detective of all time"

"A fascinating piece of work...new and startling... Did you know, for example, that the notorious Jack the Ripper was identified and brought to justice? Well, he was; and by no less a personage than the master sleuth, Holmes. And who was Jack? You are in for a real surprise...

"And did you know that Irene Adler bore Holmes a son, who now lives in New York and is a great detective in his own right? Read and discover for yourselves..." –Best Sellers

Title: Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street

Author: William S. Baring-Gould

Year: 1963

Publisher: Popular Library

Purchase: Amazon.

The Return of Moriarty (1983)

First published in 1974, this is a 1983 UK paperback edition of John Gardner's The Return of Moriarty. The cover refers to Gardner as the author of Licence Renewed, the first of 14 original James Bond novels. Gardner would also pen a sequel, The Revenge of Moriarty.

'Watson and the world thought that Holmes lay dead beneath the dark and swirling waters of the Reichenbach; but Holmes in 1894 was very much alive . . . SO WHY NOT MORIARTY?' 

An evil genius never dies. The sworn enemy of Sherlock Holmes is back, manipulating turn-of-the century unrest to his own deadly advantage. From the murky haunts of Limehouse, punishers, forgers, cash-carriers, cracksmen, blackmailers, murders and Moriarty's whore-mistress, the celebrated Sal Hodges, carry out the will of the Napoleon of crime. How far do the tentacles of evil stretch? What was the connection between Moriarty and Jack the Ripper? Or the famous de Goncourt case in which the Metropolitan police first faced charges of corruption in court? The answer for Inspector Crow, sworn to bring Moriarty to justice, lie deep in the labyrinthine darkness of the Victorian underworld.

Title: The Return of Moriarty

Author: John Gardner

Year: 1983 (first published 1974)

Publisher: Star

Purchase: Amazon (2013 edition)

Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (1962)

A fictional "biography" of the great detective by noted Sherlockian, William S. Baring-Gould. In the UK the book was titled just Sherlock Holmes. Pictured here is the first U.S. hardcover edition.

Although millions know of Sherlock Holmes through the chronicles of Dr. Watson, it is only now that, owing to his recent death, the full biography and facts of his life can be brought before the public. This volume brings together for the first time every known fact that can be fully authenticated about the life of one of the world's most extraordinary men, and reveals much more about him that has not been heretofore generally known. From twenty years' research into every possible source, the author has written as definitive and account as could ever be assembled. 

SHERLOCK HOLMES OF BAKER STREET reveals far more than Watson ever could, including the whole story of his running battle with the infamous Professor Moriarty, his dangerous brush with Jack the Ripper, his long association and love for Irene Adler, the question of his own son, the story of his retirement, the writing of his great book, and the circumstances of his death.

Title: Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street

Author: William S. Baring-Gould

Year: 1962

Publisher: Bramhall House

Purchase: Amazon.

The quest for a second Solution

As I revealed in my last post, my first experience of Sherlock Holmes in print was not the Canon, but a pastiche, The Seven Per-Cent-Solution by Nicholas Meyer. Of course, in the 1970s this was a pretty good choice of pastiche, so I might not be as ashamed of this as I'm pretending to be.

After reading the Meyer, I did begin to pick up the Doyle collections and started to give the Canon a proper read. But I craved another post-modern pastiche novel in the style of Solution. Luckily, because of the success of the Meyer book (which was also made into a film), my local Waldenbooks had quite a few of these to choose from. The first two I came away with were The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Dibdin and Exit Sherlock Holmes by Robert Lee Hall.

What drew me to these two paperbacks was the cover art. These are exactly the kinds of covers a budding young Sherlockian would be attracted to (I still like them). Also, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story promised an encounter with Jack The Ripper, so that was pretty irresistible.

While these did not live up to the level of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, I still enjoyed them both. They are well-written adventures with their own revisionist "twists." (SPOILERS AHEAD.) In The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, the great detective turns out to actually be Jack The Ripper(!). In Exit Sherlock Holmes he's revealed to be a time traveler.

While I didn't really care for the twist in Last (Holmes cannot be a murderer), the time travel element in Exit Sherlock Holmes is handled better than you would expect, and I've always though this novel would make an interesting Sherlock Holmes film.

Title: The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
Author: Michael Dibdin
Year: 1979
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Purchase: Amazon.

Title: Exit Sherlock Holmes
Author: Robert Lee Hall
Year: 1979
Publisher: Playboy Press
Purchase: Amazon.