How do
these stories hold up to my expectations? In varying degrees. Some are great,
some are good, some are okay. None are outright bad, though, which is pretty
impressive.
“A Scandal in Hobohemia” by Jamie Wyman is the first story in the
anthology. I really liked the title and there were some other pretty clever
moments. I loved Crash, the Holmes of the story, and I liked Jim Walker
(Watson), as well. I would definitely like to read more of their adventures.
What I didn’t like was where it ended, as there was no satisfactory resolution
to the mystery.
“Black Alice” by Kelly Hale is set in the seventeenth-century
and deals with Holmes and Watson as they disprove the accusations of witchcraft
made upon a young girl. It was a pretty good story, the mystery is well-done
and I had fun reading it, but it’s nothing special and altogether pretty
forgettable.
“The Adventure of the Speckled Bandana” by J.E.
Cohen was a good
mystery story, set in America in the seventies. The twist is great, but I
obviously won’t say what it is.
“The Rich Man’s Hand” by Joan De La Haye is set in South Africa. It was a
well-written story with good characters, but I didn’t like the plot all that
much. It wasn’t really interesting or bizarre, nothing that I hadn’t seen
before, and the supernatural aspects were not explained at all. At the
beginning of the story, there is a quick summary of a case Holmes has just
solved, about a man that has been eaten by his pet lion. It was a much more
compelling story than the one plot focused on, and I wish it had been the main
story.
“The Lantern Men” by Kaaron Warren was one of the stories I liked less
in the anthology. Not enough is explained for it to be a good mystery, and the
supernatural elements are a bit lackluster. It’s supposed to be a haunting
story, but it’s not unsettling enough.
“A Woman’s Place” by Emma Newman focuses on Mrs. Hudson. The
world-building was interesting and the story haw great twist. I loved the
ending, and would like to read more of the adventures of this version of Holmes
and Watson. Also, this was definitely my favorite Mrs. Hudson incarnation is
the anthology and she tied with BBC’s “Sherlock” Mrs. Hudson as the best
version of this character altogether, including Doyle’s canon.
“A Study in Scarborogough” by Guy Adams is a deeply unsettling story.
Holmes and Watson are comedians, who have created the characters of the
detective Sherlock Holmes and the doctor John Watson. Arthur Doyle, a fan of
their work, is writing a book about them, several years after Holmes’s death
and Watson’s retirement.
It wasn’t much
of a mystery, but I don’t think it was meant to be a detective story at all. It
was great, though, full of clever references to the original books.
“The Small World of 221B” by Ian Edginton is one of the best stories in the
anthology. It’s impossible to talk in detail about what made it good without
spoiling it, but it had a really great twist and the concept itself is really
clever and a lot of fun.
“The Final Conjuration” by Adrian Tchaikovsky is maybe my favorite story in the
anthology. The concept was incredibly fun and really original. It’s set in a
high fantasy environment, and Holmes is conjured by a magician Watson. The idea
of making the highly logical Holmes deal with a world where anything is
possible was great, and the ending was really clever.
“The Innocent Icarus” by James Lovegrove had a great world-building and it
was a good mystery to boot. It’s set in an alternate Victorian London, where
almost every human belongs to one of several categories. Each category has a
different set of abilities, ranging from flight to an amplified sense of smell.
Holmes is one of the few people who have no category, but that doesn’t stop him
from being just as extraordinary as everybody else. I’d definitely like to read
other stories set in this world.
“Half There/All There” by Glen Mehn was probably the best-written story
in the anthology. It focuses much more
heavily on the relationship between Holmes and Watson and their development as
characters than on the mystery itself. It was excellent, if not what I was
expecting from a Sherlock Holmes story.
“All the Single Ladies” by Gini Koch was
a fun story, with a good Holmes and a well-done mystery. It was quite good, but
it didn’t stand out.
The culprit
“The Patchwork Killer” by Kasey Lansdale
was pretty easy to figure out, while their motives weren’t. The mystery was
pretty original and interesting. Some aspects of the rest of the story were a
bit confusing, though.
“Parallels” by Jenni Hill was the last
story in the anthology. It features the two schoolgirls Jane and Charlotte as
Watson and Holmes respectively. Jane writes Sherlock Holmes fanfiction, which I
loved, as it’s a clever twist on the fact that Watson’s the one who documents
their adventures for the press. There’s not much of a mystery, but the
characterization of Jane and Charlotte is spot-on and I had a lot of fun
reading the story.
“Two
Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets” has a good selection of stories; I found
most of them to be good, and none were outright bad. I definitely recommend it
to Sherlock Holmes fans.
Rating:
★★★
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