Sherlock Holmes fiction please?

[Cutter John]

Didn't find an already existing thread, but if there is one, appologies.

I'm in the process of finishing the last of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes collections, and needless to say I'm hungry for more! Can anyone recommend some adventures written by other authors that are worth reading?

 

[auntiehill]

The Whitechapel Horrors by Edward B. Hanna
Revenge of the Hound by Michael Hardwick (love this one)
Prisoner of the Devil , also by Michael Hardwick
The Seven Percent Solution by Nicholas Meyer (even if you've seen the movie, give the book a try)

 

[Professor Zoom]

Didn't find an already existing thread, but if there is one, appologies.

I'm in the process of finishing the last of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes collections, and needless to say I'm hungry for more! Can anyone recommend some adventures written by other authors that are worth reading?

Titan Books publishes a WHOLE lot of them... I've been tempted, but, I thought I would finish Doyle first. A lot of them seem to be team ups...

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I'll second the recommendation of Edward Hanna's The Whitechapel Horrors. It's a very good Jack the Ripper novel and a very good Sherlock Holmes novel.

Loren D. Estleman's Sherlock Holmes Vs. Dracula. There are a lot of Holmes meets Dracula stories out there, and most of them are... umm... errr... not good. Estleman's book manages to be a good Sherlock Holmes story and fits pretty seamlessly into Bram Stoker's novel. The BBC did a radio adaptation of this in the late 70s that's very nice.

Sam Siciliano's The Angel of the Opera. This one was stupidly difficult to find for the longest time, but Titan Books recently reprinted it. It's Sherlock Holmes vs. the Phantom of the Opera. It's not narrated by Watson (and there's a reason in-story for that), but despite that it's really quite good.

I'd also look at anthologies. Among the ones I've enjoyed...

Mike Ashley's The Mammoth Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories
Michael Reaves' Shadows Over Baker Street (Holmes vs. Lovecraftian horrors)
Mike Resnick's Sherlock Holmes In Orbit (Sherlock Holmes stories with a science-fiction twist)
Marvin Kaye's The Game Is Afoot (a nice selection that spans a century of fiction and scholarship)
John Joseph Adams' The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

 

[Nerys Myk]

The original version of the Adventure of the Peerless Peer by Philip Jose Farmer.

 

[Saga]

The Seven Percent Solution by Nicholas Meyer (even if you've seen the movie, give the book a try)

this is an excellent book. the best of the non-Doyle Holmes novels IMO.

 

[stj]

The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Dibdin, the late and great. Benedict Cumberbatch should laugh in Steven Moffat's face.

 

[Forbin]

Sherlock Holmes in Orbit.
Holmes with a sci fi bent. It's a hoot.

 

[Greg Cox]

FYI: There are two sequels to The Seven Percent Solution: The West End Horror and The Canary Trainer. Although the first book is far and away the best of the three.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Not strictly Sherlock, but with Watson, and a bit meta, The List of Seven, and its sequel, The Six Messiahs, by Mark Frost.

Horowitz's recent The House Of Silk is supposed to be good, but I haven't caught that yet.

 

[CmdrAJD]

Caleb Carr wrote one a few years ago called The Italian Secretary; although, I had to admit that I wasn't incredibly impressed with it. His book The Alienist, which not a Holmes novel, is a fantastic crime novel set in the same time period.

I will definitely second (or third at this point), the Sherlock Holmes in Orbit recommendation. There are several other Holmes short story collections, The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Holmes For The Holidays come to mind, which have some good stories in them. Steven King wrote of the of the stories in New Adventures. Conan Doyle's son, Adrian, also wrote a collection of Holmes stories called The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes, which is interesting if you can find it.

Larry Millett wrote a series of Holmes novels all set in Minnesota. I've only read the first two (Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon, and Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders), but I actually really enjoyed them, which I didn't expect to considering the concept.

 

[Kirkman1987]

FYI: There are two sequels to The Seven Percent Solution: The West End Horror and The Canary Trainer. Although the first book is far and away the best of the three.

These are the only non-Doyle Holmes books I've read, and I liked them a lot. Seven Percent is by far the strongest as everyone seems to be saying.

 

[Captain Dago]

With the exception of the most recent entry, "The Pirate King," I have very much enjoyed Laurie King's series pairing Holmes with young Mary Russell. I avoided them for a long time because I thought the premise was daft but the writing and plotting are top notch and Holmes seems to be truly himself.

 

[Christopher]

Not quite the same, but I wonder if there are going to be any books (or audios) based on Steven Moffat's Sherlock series.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Kim Newman's The Hound of the Durbervilles, which is a take on the Holmes Canon, but from the POV of Moriarty and his sidekick Moran, who 'writes' the stories, as a sort of evil Watson.

Try also Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series, set around the time of the Great War (First World War), which pair an ageing Holmes with a young woman (the said Ms Russell). I know this sounds a bit dodgy, but trust me, they're very good.

 

[stj]

It finally dawned on me why the Michael Hardwick citations seemed wrong: There was no mention of his The Private Life of John Watson.

A Taste for Honey has Holmes by an alias but is an excellent Holmesian pastiche for one without a Watson. H.F. Heard wrote it I think.

 

[Captain Dago]

I'd also nominate Michael Chabon's "The Final Solution."

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Not quite the same, but I wonder if there are going to be any books (or audios) based on Steven Moffat's Sherlock series.

I have doubts, to be honest.

It's disappointing that the only tie-in to Sherlock seems to be the reprints of Study in Scarlet and Adventures with the promo photo covers.

 

[Saul]

Not quite the same, but I wonder if there are going to be any books (or audios) based on Steven Moffat's Sherlock series.

So far they've released the original stories with updated covers of Sherlock and John on them.

 

[Saga]

i guess i should mention i read The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King last month. didn't really care for it. there were parts i enjoyed, parts were just dry and boring, and other parts were very predictable. still, it was an interesting WWI era take on Holmes.