After reviewing Will Murray‘s first collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories, I now review his second.
Pulp historian and author Will Murray has been doing new stories with Doc Savage, The Spider, Tarzan, and other pulp characters. His first Holmes collection came out in 2020 from Altus Press, and this one came out in 2023 but from Will’s own Odyssey Publications imprint.
Like the previous one, we get a nice cover this time by Gary Carbon, with Joe DeVito‘s cover from the first volume appearing on the back, and another map of story locations by Jason Eckardt.
This volume has 10 canon-style stories, mainly from volumes in the series of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories. Three of the stories include Algernon Blackwood‘s psychic physician, John Silence.
Full disclosure, I was provided a copy to review.
Let’s take a look at what we get in this volume.
In a case from early on in his career, Holmes deals with a case of spontaneous human combustion (SHC) in “The Singular Problem of the Extinguished Wicks.” A spinster is found dead in her apartment, strangely burned with nothing else affected. But what seems a simple case is made more complex when her younger sister is later found dead in the apartment also burned. So two cases of SHC, or something else?
During a ride home in a hansom cab, the cabman tells Holmes of a strange event he experienced. Thus “The Mystery of the Spectral Shelter” has Holmes looking into a cabman’s shelter that the cabman had found but decided not to enter as the other cabman there was strangely still and the server made him nervous. The shelter was no longer there the next day, when these are permanent structures. Holmes sees something more sinister here and confronts a monstrous crime.
In a story, “The Problem of the Surrey Samson,” that doesn’t actually deal with a crime, Watson attends a show of the “Surrey Samson” and is amazed at the feats of strength by a man who doesn’t appear to be overly strong. Holmes decides to attend a subsequent show. Will he be able to deduce how the man does it, and what will he do with that knowledge?
“The Uncanny Adventure of the Hammersmith Wonder” is actually the story that inspired the cover for this collection. Watson alerts Holmes to a strange phenomenon: an ancient tree is struck by lightning, breaking and burning some of it. In the process, it exposes that an eye is in the tree. What causes a human-like eye to be present? Holmes looks into the matter. What will he find? A simple prank from years ago, or something more sinister? This was another surprising tale.
A banker reaches out to Holmes for a consultation, then cancels. The next day he is found dead under mysterious circumstances in “The Repulsive Matter of the Bloodless Banker.” As the title indicates, the man was found dead in his bed lacking any blood. But no wound was found. How did this occur? In the end, Holmes will reveal a shocking case that involves others in a bizarre triangle of love and hate, driven by greed.
Next, we have the three stories that also involve Dr. John Silence. In the first, “The Adventure of the Abominable Adder,” Watson brings to Holmes’s attention a strange case about which one of his physician friends informed him. A widow had recently traveled to Egypt where she obtained a ring with an entwined snake. But she has two strange incidents of a bizarre dream and finds her ring finger bleeding with two puncture wounds. Holmes offers to look into it, and the widow has engaged Dr. Silence. Can the two figure things out, and more so will Holmes be able to work with him?
In the next tale, “The Adventure of the Sorrowing Mudlark,” Dr. Silence calls on Holmes for help with a case involving a mudlark. And for those not aware, a mudlark is not a bird, but a person who goes through the mud along the Thames looking for anything of value. In this case, the “sorrowing mudlark” appears to be a ghostly appearance of a woman seeking something along the shoreline. While Holmes is not a believer in ghosts, he assists in finding out who this person was and what they might be seeking. Will they succeed in identifying the person and helping them move on?
In the third tale involving Dr. Silence, “The Adventure of the Emerald Urchin,” both Holmes and Silence show up to look into the same case: a mysterious young boy who had green skin has appeared in East Anglia. Is he a fairy folk, or is there a more mundane explanation? While Dr. Silence takes the lead, Holmes is able to discover the real story behind it all.
A little different story, “The Adventure of the Expelled Master” is set in 1908 during Holmes’ retirement and has Holmes narrate the story without Watson. The local police inspector comes to Holmes with a mystery. The titular schoolmaster was expelled from his chimney. A passing student saw this, and others found his battered body where it landed in the woods. Can Holmes figure it out what happened?
A cache of ancient tin items is discovered in “The Conundrum of the Questionable Coins,” but it includes a strange group of triangular coins made of a strange metal. Are they made of orichalcum, the metal of Atlantis? Are these coins from Atlantis or is there another explanation? Does Holmes figure this out?
Now, we are told that since he did the first collection Murray now has 40-some stories, certainly enough for at least two more collections, and we are promised a third volume and can see the cover in the back, which hopefully will come out later this year. But certainly, we should see a fourth and maybe a fifth. I’ve enjoyed all of these stories so far, so plan on getting the next ones.
