Elementary: The Ghost Line (2015)

I admit I'm not a fan of Elementary, the American version of the excellent BBC series, Sherlock, but I'm intrigued to see the series has spawned original mass market tie-in novels. This first book, The Ghost Line, was released in 2015. A second, Blood and Ink, will be released in April 2016.

Summons to a bullet-riddled body in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment marks the start of a new case for consulting detectives Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson. The victim is a subway train driver with a hidden stash of money and a strange Colombian connection, but why would someone kill him and leave a fortune behind? 

The search for the truth will lead the sleuths deep into the hidden underground tunnels beneath New York City, where answers—and more bodies—may well await them...

Title: Elementary: The Ghost Line
Author: Adam Christopher
Year: 2015
Publisher: Titan Books
Purchase: Amazon.

Mycroft Holmes (2015)

A novel about Mycroft Holmes written by basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who, it turns out, is a Sherlockian. Who knew?

Fresh out of Cambridge University, the young Mycroft Holmes is already making a name for himself in government, working for the Secretary of State for War. Yet this most British of civil servants has strong ties to the faraway island of Trinidad, the birthplace of his best friend, Cyrus Douglas, a man of African descent, and where his fiancée Georgiana Sutton was raised.

Mycroft’s comfortable existence is overturned when Douglas receives troubling reports from home. There are rumors of mysterious disappearances, strange footprints in the sand, and spirits enticing children to their deaths, their bodies found drained of blood. Upon hearing the news, Georgiana abruptly departs for Trinidad. Near panic, Mycroft convinces Douglas that they should follow her, drawing the two men into a web of dark secrets that grows more treacherous with each step they take...

 Written by NBA superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and screenwriter Anna Waterhouse, Mycroft Holmes reveals the untold story of Sherlock’s older brother. This harrowing adventure changed his life, and set the stage for the man Mycroft would become: founder of the famous Diogenes Club and the hidden power behind the British government.

Title: Mycroft Holmes
Author: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Year: 2015
Publisher: Titan Books
Purchase: Amazon.

Sherlock (2015)

A major collection of over 80 Sherlock Holmes pastiche and parodies assembled by famed publisher and Otto Penzler. Released in the U.S. as The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories, this is the UK edition from Head of Zeus. You can read a review of the book at Baker Street Babes.

In 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle put pen to paper and created a legend: Sherlock Holmes. The greatest detective of all time. His tall, slender, hawk-nosed figure with his deerstalker hat is instantly recognizable in every corner of the world. Alongside Doyle's original stories, Sherlock has spawned a literature of his own in parodies and homages. More than 25,000 books, stories and articles have been written by authors, amateurs and scholars. In this stupendous anthology, the best and most brilliant are collected together for the first time. 

CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE: Arthur Conan Doyle, James M. Barrie, O. Henry, Stephen King, Kingsley Amis, A.A. Milne, P.G. Wodehouse, Neil Gaiman, Anthony Burgess, Colin Dexter and Anne Perry.

Title: Sherlock
Author: Otto Pendler (editor)
Year: 2015
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Purchase: Amazon.co.uk.

Sherlock Holmes and The Escape Artist (2014)

Sherlock Holmes, Mary Watson and Harry Houdini join forces in a spiritualist debunking adventure. Fred Thursfiled has penned several other Holmes pastiche novels including: Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Writer, Sherlock Holmes and The Discarded Cigarette, and Sherlock Holmes and the Terrible Secret.

Do Spirits Return?  

Sherlock Holmes, Mary Watson and Harry Houdini say 'No' and  prove it.

Title: Sherlock Holmes and The Escape Artist

Author: Fred Thursfiled

Year: 2014

Publisher: MX Publishing

Purchase: Amazon.

The Adventure of the Peerless Peer (1976)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson meet Tarzan? Sure, why not? It certainly makes for sensational cover art. The Adventure of the Peerless Peer was first published in hardcover by Aspen Press in 1974. This is the 1976 Dell paperback.

THE WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE'S

MOST PERILOUS MISSION!

WHEREIN:

Holmes and Watson take to the skies in quest of the nefarious Von Bork and his weapon of dread––a night sky aerial engagement with the deadly Fokker nearly claims three brilliant lives––the astonishing careers of the two American air aces are illuminated––and an historic alliance is formed, whereby Baker Street's enigmatic mystery-solver and Greystoke, the Noble Savage, Peer of the Realm and Lord of the Jungle, team up to bring down the Hellish Hun!

Title: The Adventure of the Peerless Peer

Author: Philip Jose Farmer

Year: 1976 (first published 1974)

Publisher: Dell

Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Check out the podcast I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere for a related Holmes-Tarzan post: Sherlock Holmes vs. Tarzan — by the Numbers.

Exit Sherlock Holmes (1979)

Robert Lee Hall's Exit Sherlock Holmes offered up a sci-fi resolution to the mystery of Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty. This is the 1979 U.S. paperback edition with nicely atmospheric cover art by Jordi Penalva.

THE GREAT DETECTIVE'S FINAL DAYS 

Through the sounds and fogs of Victorian London and a tangled maze of deception, the resurrected Sherlock Holmes and his archenemy, the wicked Professor Moriarity, once again engage in a terrifying battle between good and evil. When the master sleuth decides to "disappear" in order to deal with the villain, his loyal assistant, Dr. Watson, frantically searches for him, traveling deep into Holmes' mysterious past, until he must face the shocking discovery that his old friend has lied to him for years about who he really is and where he comes from. Indeed, Watson learns the master's incredible lifelong secret–a truth which is, in the Great Detective's own words, "infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."

Title: Exit Sherlock Holmes
Author: Robert Lee Hall
Year: 1979 (first published 1977)
Publisher: Playboy Press
Purchase: Amazon.com.

SHERLOCK: The Abominable Bride (2016)

I know this is blog devoted to literary Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but how can I not give a shout-out to tonight's airing of SHERLOCK: The Abominable Bride on PBS Masterpiece Mystery (U.S.) and BBC One (UK). For this one-off special, Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock has been sent back to the Victorian era.

The title The Abominable Bride is a nod to one of the unrecorded adventures of Sherlock Holmes mentioned in the Conan Doyle story The Musgrave Ritual ("Ricoletti of the club-foot and his abominable wife"). So, yes, it is an adventure for which the world was not yet prepared...until tonight.

LINK: Interview with Nicholas Meyer

My favorite Sherlock Holmes website, I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, has a terrific podcast interview with Nicholas Meyer, who wrote the seminal Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel, The Seven Per Cent Solution (which launched my interest in Holmes), as well as the screenplay for the film version.

Meyer is a excellent conversationalist and tells fascinating stories about his adventures in the world of Sherlock Holmes and Hollywood, so click the headline to have a listen at IHOSE.

Sherlock Holmes: The Crossovers Casebook (2012)

A collection of stories teaming Sherlock Holmes with popular figures from history and fiction.

Moonstone Books is proud to present this original anthology featuring never-before-seen tales of the world's first consulting detective, Mr Sherlock Holmes, as he teams up with other investigators and notables of his time! Holmes teams up with one of the most famous thieves of literature, Arsene Lupin! Lawrence of Arabi! Calamity Jane! Sexton Blake! Houdini! The Thinking Machine! Doc Savage's father, Colonel Savage! Featuring short stories from incredible authors including Barbara Hambly, Will Murray, Kevin Van Hook, Martin Powell, Matthew Baugh, Martin Gately, Don Roff, Win Scott Eckert, Chris Sequiera, and Joe Gentile, this collection showcases the secret sequel to the classic Holmes novel "The Sign of Four", as well as Sherlock and Conan Doyle's own "Lost World" Professor Challenger!

Title: Sherlock Holmes: The Crossovers Casebook
Author: Howard Hopkins (editor)
Year: 2012
Publisher: Moonstone
Purchase: Amazon.

Pulptime (1985)

Pulptime by P.H. Cannon has Holmes teaming up with H.P. Lovecraft and Harry Houdini to solve a mystery in 1925 New York. Includes illustrations by Steve Fabian.

In these pages, H.P. lovecraft lives again and Sherlock Holmes stalks New York of 1925, looking for a set of mysterious documents stolen by New York gangster Jan Martens. A visit with Harry Houdini, a seance with a beautiful medium, a trek through the New York sewer system––and what lay beyond––make a fascinating tale, as told through the words of young Weird Tales writer Frank Belknap Long, Jr., Lovecraft's best friend.

A Lovecraft scholar, Cannon has utilized his knowledge of the many volumes of Lovecraft's letters to reconstruct some of the events of his New York life and to simulate his actual conversations. (His friends have said that HPL spoke just as he wrote!)

As for what the documents are, and whether there were recovered––read on!

Title: Pulptime
Author: P.H. Cannon
Year: 1985
Publisher: Weirdbook Press
Purchase: Amazon.