Island of the Mad by Laurie R. King

Island of the Mad: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King - 306 pages including Author's Note and Acknwlegements

The latest installment in the series that began with The Beekeeper's Apprentice.  

Russell is asked by a friend from her college days to find out whether the friend’s aunt (a wealthy heiress) has disappeared of her own free will, has been kidnapped, or has suffered another mental breakdown.

Russell’s search for Vivian Beaconsfield leads her from Bedlam Hospital to Venice. Fortuitously, her husband Sherlock Holmes has agreed to a reconiassance mission for his brother Mycroft, who needs someone to assess the potential threat posed by the rise of the Fascists in Italy. Too many right wing politicians in England think that a strong man like Mussolini is what's needed to keep the masses under control --- and not just in Italy. 

Russell hunts for evidence of Vivian’s presence among the expatriate community drinking and carousing on the Lido, where she insinuates herself into the fast company of Elsa Maxwell. Meanwhile, Holmes gains entry into the household of the American composer Cole Porter and his wife Linda. The Porters drop millions of lira into the local economy, but their guest lists are more exclusive, focusing on people of power and influence, including the Venetian Fascists.

One of the reasons this series is so much more satisfying than other Holmes pastiches is not just Russell’s character but the way that she has absorbed Holmes’ methods and applies them with the different sensibilities of both her generation and gender in a new century.

There are two serious themes lurking beneath the mysteries here. One is the rise of fascism in 1920s Europe and how easily the fascists took control of Italy. Any similarities between that situation and xenophobic regimes today are likely intentional.

Likewise the mystery that takes Russell to Venice in the first place. Her friend’s aunt was committed to Bedlam, the psychiatric asylum in London, for years. She stayed on there voluntarily when she could have left.  Now she has disappeared. Russell realizes the real mystery is why she was committed in the first place.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.






 

The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons

The Fifth Heart: A Novel by Dan Simmons --- 617 pages

The most unlikely pairing you could imagine, as Sherlock Holmes ditches Dr. Watson to partner with the American novelist Henry James to solve a very complicated set of interwoven mysteries. Unbelievable? Yes, but Simmons makes it work in this fin de siècle story set in the United States. Far more than a simple Holmes pastiche, Simmons adroitly combines a Conan Doyle style sensational plot with the refined sensibilities of a James novel.

Virtually every major and many minor characters, places and events in the book are real people, places and events, with a few well known fictional characters mixed in, plus a running undercurrent about the relationship of authors to their creations. In the midst of all this Simmons unfolds his take on the suicide of Clover Adams, wife of the distingished American historian Henry Adams and the inspiration for James' The Portrait of a Lady, and how it relates to an anarchist plot to assasinate the leaders of the western world, beginning with President Grover Cleveland at the Grand Opening of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a schme masterminded by Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty.

Be forewarned, this doorstopper of a book starts slowly. It requires persistence and patience, but once the gears begins to spin, the pay off comes. The wonderful cameo appearances of Sam Clemens, Teddy Roosevelt, and Clarence King (just to name a few), the vivd descriptions of Washington D.C., Boston, and Chicago's "White City" (site of the Columbian Exposition), are the icing on this improbable but engrossing literary conundrum.

Click HERE to read a review in The Guardian.

Click HERE to read a review in the Washington Post.

Click HERE to read a review in the Denver Post.

Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years: Japan by Vasudev Murthy

Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years: Japan by Vasudev Murthy --- 270 pages

Millions of people all around the world can testify to the enduring fascination of Arthur Conan Doyle's consulting detective. I've been a fan since my mother bought me a complete collection of the Sherlock Holmes canon when I was just a kid.  I still have the book, carefully held together with tape and rubber bands. And I enjoy reading all the variations on Holmes continuing adventures written by other besotted admirers.

Vasudev Murthy has now added his take on Holmes and Watson, and the "missing years" between Holmes' presumed death at the Reichenbach Falls and his startling reappearance in London (The Adventure of the Empty House), with a story of international intrigue and adventure set in Japan. The criminal mastermind, Professor Moriarty, unconvinced of Holmes' demise, sets his minions on the elusive detective's globe-spanning trail. Meanwhile, Holmes has been recruited by the Meiji Emperor of Japan, to prevent the Japanese Yakuza and the Chinese Triads from joining forces with Moriarty in an ambitious plan to destabilize Europe by flooding it with cheap opium.

It takes a little time for Murthy to hit his stride --- the first chapters are mostly expository and sometimes ponderous, but once Holmes reveals himself the pace quickens and the adventures begin.

The book is the first in a new series. True Sherlockians will enjoy this; other will give it a pass.


Click HERE for a review from Blog Critics.

Click HERE for a review from Kirkus.

Death on a Pale Horse by Donald Thomas

Death on a Pale Horse: Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service; a Novel by Donald Thomas --- 346 pages

Donald Thomas is a British author of numerous fiction and nonfiction books, with a particular interest in Victorian and Edwardian England, especially crime and government censorship. He's written a number of Sherlock Holmes novels. In this latest volume, Dr. Watson chronicles an early adventure in his acquaintance with Holmes.

He reveals a tale of vengeful intrigue, in which the notorious Colonel Rowan "Hunter" Moran schemes to humiliate the mighty Army of the British Empire and drag all Europe into the inferno of war. Following in the footsteps of the Master, Thomas is one of the best of the many who attempt Sherlockian pastiche. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Conan Doyle should be flattered indeed.