Season's Greetings

Pull up and chair and relax. Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson will return next year with more tales from The Battered Tin.

WISHING ALL A MERRY CHRISTMAS 

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part XXX: More Christmas Adventures (1897-1928)

The MX series of new Sherlock Holmes stories continues with some holiday adventures. This is the third of three companion volumes published for Christmas 2021.

In Fall 2016, the series presented its first "themed" collection - Part V: Christmas Adventures - containing 30 new adventures that proved to be extremely and enduringly popular. With that in mind, we now revisit that season, with 57 more Christmas Adventures, ranging from a consequential case that occurred when Holmes was still a teenager, to another in the late 1920's when Holmes - in retirement - was still at the top of his game. 

The fifty-seven stories in these three companion volumes are a thrilling mix of mysteries, whatever the season. Some are directly involved with Christmas, while others occur during and in around that season. These represent some of the finest new Holmesian storytelling to be found by the best pasticheurs, and once again they honor the man described by Watson as "the best and wisest . . . whom I have ever known." 

Title: The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part XXX: More Christmas Adventures (1897-1928)
Editor: David Marcum
Year: 2021
Publisher: MX Publishing
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part XXIX: More Christmas Adventures (1889-1896)

The MX series of new Sherlock Holmes stories continues with some holiday adventures. This is the second of three companion volumes published for Christmas 2021.

In Fall 2016, the series presented its first "themed" collection - Part V: Christmas Adventures - containing 30 new adventures that proved to be extremely and enduringly popular. With that in mind, we now revisit that season, with 57 more Christmas Adventures, ranging from a consequential case that occurred when Holmes was still a teenager, to another in the late 1920's when Holmes - in retirement - was still at the top of his game. 

The fifty-seven stories in these three companion volumes are a thrilling mix of mysteries, whatever the season. Some are directly involved with Christmas, while others occur during and in around that season. These represent some of the finest new Holmesian storytelling to be found by the best pasticheurs, and once again they honor the man described by Watson as "the best and wisest . . . whom I have ever known." 

Title: The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part XXIX: More Christmas Adventures (1889-1896)
Editor: David Marcum
Year: 2021
Publisher: MX Publishing
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part XXVIII: More Christmas Adventures (1869-1888)

The MX series of new Sherlock Holmes stories continues with some holiday adventures. This is the first of three companion volumes published for Christmas 2021.

In Fall 2016, the series presented its first "themed" collection - Part V: Christmas Adventures - containing 30 new adventures that proved to be extremely and enduringly popular. With that in mind, we now revisit that season, with 57 more Christmas Adventures, ranging from a consequential case that occurred when Holmes was still a teenager, to another in the late 1920's when Holmes - in retirement - was still at the top of his game. 

The fifty-seven stories in these three companion volumes are a thrilling mix of mysteries, whatever the season. Some are directly involved with Christmas, while others occur during and in around that season. These represent some of the finest new Holmesian storytelling to be found by the best pasticheurs, and once again they honor the man described by Watson as "the best and wisest . . . whom I have ever known." 

Title: The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part XXVIII: More Christmas Adventures (1869-1888)
Editor: David Marcum
Year: 2021
Publisher: MX Publishing
Purchase: Amazon.com  | Amazon.co.uk

The Pandora Plague (1984)

Most know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini were friends in real-life. But Houdini has also has a regular partnership with Sherlock Holmes in the pages of fiction. The Pandora Plague by Lee A. Matthias was one of their early encounters.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson team up with the master magician Harry Houdini in another thrilling mystery in the life of the greatest detective of all time. 

Houdini is entrusted with a strange locked box from the Far East and is asked to open it. But even he has no way of getting into it until Holmes and Watson join him in solving the riddle of its lock. And when the box is opened, the three investigators unwittingly become entangled with THE PANDORA PLAGUE.

Title: The Pandora Plague
Author: Lee A. Matthias
Year: 1984 (first published 1981)
Publisher: Unicorn Star Press
Purchase: Amazon

Ten Years Beyond Baker Street (1988)

Sherlock Holmes faces off with the Professor Moriarty of the Far East, the diabolical Dr. Fu Manchu! First published in 1984. This is the 1988 U.S. paperback edition.

 

It was ten years beyond Baker Street. The great detective was living in restless retirement among his bees in the wilds of Sussex. But an old warhorse will ever thrill to the trumpet of battle, and when a distraught Dr. Petrie begged his help to rescue Nayland Smith from the clutches of the fiendish Dr. Fu Manchu, Holmes, though reluctant, could not resist. 

When the sinister Oriental's evil minions unleashed their vile devices against the great man himself, the issue became more clear-cut. Though the stakes may have includied not simply the survival of Nayland Smith but that of the Empire itself, the stark facts ws that the game was toi be played by two geniuses for good and ill in a battle for a very personal supremacy.

Title: Ten Years Beyond Baker Street
Author: Cay Van Ash
Year: 1988 (first published 1984)
Publisher: Peremnial Library
Purchase: Amazon.

The Return of the Pharaoh (2021)

An all-new Sherlock Holmes pastiche from the pen of the great Nicholas Meyer will be released on November 9, 2021. This time Holmes and Watson meet Howard Carter in Egypt. This will be Meyer's fifth Holmes novel following: The Sever-Per-Cent Solution, The West End Horror, The Canary Trainer, and The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols. 

In Nicholas Meyer's The Return of the Pharaoh, Sherlock Holmes returns in an adventure that takes him to Egypt in search of a missing nobleman, a previously undiscovered pharaoh's tomb, and a conspiracy that threatens his very life.  

With his international bestseller, The Seven Per Cent Solution, Nicholas Meyer brought to light a previously unpublished case of Sherlock Holmes that reinvigorated the world's interest in the first consulting detective. Now, many years later, Meyer is given exclusive access to Dr. Watson's unpublished journal, wherein he details a previously unknown case. 

In 1910, Dr. John Watson travels to Egypt with his wife Juliet. Her tuberculosis has returned and her doctor recommends a stay at a sanitarium in a dry climate. But while his wife undergoes treatment, Dr. Watson bumps into an old friend--Sherlock Holmes, in disguise and on a case. An English Duke with a penchant for egyptology has disappeared, leading to enquiries from his wife and the Home Office. 

Holmes has discovered that the missing duke has indeed vanished from his lavish rooms in Cairo and that he was on the trail of a previous undiscovered and unopened tomb. And that he's only the latest Egyptologist to die or disappear under odd circumstances. With the help of Howard Carter, Holmes and Watson are on the trail of something much bigger, more important, and more sinister than an errant lord.

Title: The Return of the Pharaoh
Author: Nicholas Meyer
Year: 2021
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Holmes meets 007 (1967)

With the release today of a new James Bond film, No Time To Die, I thought I'd share this rare Holmes-Bond crossover pastiche by Donald Stanley. This is #134 of 222 from my own collection.

In this, Vintage No. 3 of Beaune Pressings, we vary our policy of reprinting Sherlockian Incunabula to present a recent parody the ephemeral nature of which greatly limited its availability. It is sent, with Compliments Of The Season to the friends of Dean & Shirley Dickensheet and of Vamberry's, Ltd.

Title: Holmes meets 007
Author: Donald Stanley
Year: 1967
Publisher: The Beaune Press
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (1976)

A canonical continuation by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's son, Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr. First published in 1954. I love the cover of this 1976 paperback reprint.

Once again, "The game's afoot!"

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson embark on twelve new detective adventures that have been out of print for more than twenty years.

These strange and surprising cases––only hinted at in the famous earlier chronicles––are recorded at last in full. Here is the good Watson, rushing impetuously to the aid of lovely ladies in distress. And Holmes, taking soothing pleasure from his violin while frustrating Scotland Yard's Lestrade at every encounter.

These are, indeed, cases for the connoisseur. No one could have produced them with the  authentic Conan Doyle flavor but Sir Arthur's son Adrian. Writing with one of the world's greatest masters of mystery, John Dickson Carr, he has produced a rare casebook to delight and confound Sherlock Holmes fans the world over!

The Adventure of THE SEVEN CLOCKS

The Adventure of THE GOLD HUNTER

The Adventure of THE WAX GAMBLERS

The Adventure of THE HIGHGATE MIRACLE

The Adventure of THE BLACK BARONET

The Adventure of THE SEALED ROOM

The Adventure of FOULKES RATH

The Adventure of THE ABBY RUINS

The Adventure of THE TWO WOMEN

The Adventure of THE DARK ANGLES

The Adventure of THE DEPARTED HORROR

The Adventure of THE RED WIDOW 

Title: The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Adrian Conan Doyle & John Dickson Carr

Year: 1976 (first published 1954)

Publisher: Pocket Books

Purchase: Amazon.

Sherlock Holmes at Lincoln's Tomb (2021)

A young Sherlock Holmes teams joins Dr. Joseph Bell and Arthur Conan Doyle on an American adventure.

The recently unearthed diaries of the young Arthur Conan Doyle provide evidence, if not proof of the that Doyle knew Sherlock Holmes as early as 1878, when Holmes was working in the laboratory of Dr. Joseph Bell at the University of Edinburgh. Holmes, a brilliant scientist and an astute medical diagnostician had either dropped out or had been expelled from a London medical school. 

This, the first diary, records the adventures of Doyle and Holmes, when they accompany Dr. Bell to Chicago. Dr. Bell gives lectures and demonstrates his surgical technique with Doyle's assistance. Holmes deduces the cause of death in a victim who collapsed on the street and Doyle becomes involved with the local medical students. Together, Doyle and Holmes uncover a plot by ex-confederate officers to assassinate the president and take over the United States. 

The story demonstrates Holmes' amazing skills of observation, diagnosis, his ability to solve crimes and his dogged pursuit of criminals. During this adventure young Arthur Conan Doyle encounters his friend, Robert Louis Stevenson, is abducted by the James gang, falls in love with a red haired Scottish lass and survives a harrowing ride in a hot air balloon.

Title: Sherlock Holmes at Lincoln's Tomb
Author: John Raffensperger & Richard Krevolin
Year: 2021
Publisher: MX Publishing
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk