In 1893, young army officer Cecil Hambrough was murdered at the sprawling Ardlamont estate in Scotland, unleashing one of the most gripping court cases Victorian Britain had ever known. Even more remarkably, the case brought together two pioneering forensic experts – Joseph Bell and Henry Littlejohn – two men upon whom Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock […]
Sherlock Holmes and the Duelling Dukes by Linda Stratmann
In 1877, Sherlock Holmes and his good friend Mr Stamford have taken a break from their studies at Barts Medical College in London to join a gentlemen’s sporting week at a large country manor house. But on arrival, they find the guests consumed by old rivalries, with new hatreds and sinister plots festering among them. […]
Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Rosetta Stone Mystery by Linda Stratmann
Sherlock Holmes and the Rosetta Stone Mystery is the first of Linda Stratmann‘s novels following the consulting detective in the making. Tom Williams, author of the Napoleonic era-set James Burke adventures and the darker John Williamson books, finds it “rather wonderful”. The world is full of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Most of them, to be honest, […]
Sherlock Holmes and the Explorers’ Club by Linda Stratmann
London in 1876. When the preserved foot of a dead man with extra toes arrives at St Bartholomew’s Medical College, the students are fascinated. However, despite this unusual feature being reported in the press, the man’s identity remains a mystery. Intrigued by the puzzle, medical student Mr Stamford calls on his acquaintance Sherlock Holmes – […]
Beware of Greeks: when Homer meets Holmes
Peter Tonkin, author of many adventure and murder mystery books, takes his skills to another age: mythical Ancient Greece. Homer’s epic tales of Odysseus and the Trojan war have been favourite holiday reading for many years. What, he wonders, would happen if he took Sherlock Holmes and dropped him into the Mycenaean Bronze Age? July […]
The Reichenbach Falls
The tumbling cascades of the Reichenbach Falls loom large in the many worlds of Sherlock Holmes and the works of Conan Doyle, second only to 221b Baker St as a touchstone. The Falls, though, are not only a memorable setting but also a powerful symbol, of an author tired of his creation, of the most […]