In early 2025, we got volume five of The Wild Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Will Murray. Murray has been doing new stories with Doc Savage, The Spider, Tarzan, and other pulp characters.
As with the previous volumes, we get 10 new canon stories, all taken from various anthologies from the MX series as well as Belanger Books. There is a great cover by Tom Roberts, who, in addition to being a commercial artist, is the man behind Black Dog Books, and another map of story locations by Jason Eckardt. If you get the hardcover edition, there is an additional article by Murray.
The stories range across Sherlock Holmes‘ career. All are organized chronologically. While a few appear to get into the supernatural, all have mundane explanations. We get some recurring characters, some returning from prior volumes. Might we get a return of some of these in the future? That remains to be seen.
Full disclosure, I was provided a copy of the softcover edition to review.
Let’s take a look at what we get in this volume.
The first story is set early in Holmes’ career and gives him a mystery that he is able to solve without leaving 221B Baker Street. A mortician goes for a walk and never returns. His wife has no idea if he is dead or alive, and so Holmes is engaged to see if he can figure it out, which he does.
Wiggins, the leader of the Baker Street Irregulars, informs Holmes about someone working among the criminal element who says he’s the opposite of Holmes: a “criminalist.” Instead of helping solve crimes, he consults with criminals to help them commit crimes. Going by the name of Reynard Renbourne, Holmes tries to figure out who he is. In the first story, he is able to figure out what crime he helped assist and solve it. In the second, he is able to send this “criminalist” to Newgate prison by setting him up by planning the death of someone: Dr. Watson. Will we see him again?
In the third volume of stories, Holmes had four stories in which he went up against Giles Greengold. At the end of that sequence, Greengold apparently left England. But now an associate tries to strike back at Holmes. Will we see the return of this character in a future volume?
A baronet writes to Holmes for help at his new estate. He and his wife believe the ghost of an ancestor now haunts their house, and it’s scaring their employees. Can Holmes and Watson solve this case?
A husband comes to Holmes in distress. His daughter is in the hospital, poisoned. His wife has been arrested as the main suspect. But he doesn’t believe she did it. Can Holmes solve this one? Here, Holmes makes use of an area of knowledge outside of crime to figure things out.
Watson finds an item in the newspaper about a strange crime. A man is found dead of unknown causes, a fountain pen clutched in one hand, and he apparently started to write something on his boots. Scotland Yard is baffled, so can Holmes figure out what happened, and if this is murder, who did it?
Watson returns to their dwelling to find Holmes under the weather. While it seems to be a cold, it gets worse, and Holmes goes to the hospital. It seems that he has been poisoned, but what is the poison, and how did it happen? Watson checks in on a recent client of Holmes and wonders if this person was the poisoner. Can the figure things out and save Holmes?
London is being plagued by a series of strange events when it is hit by fog. People have strange encounters, which soon start escalating to being threatened, and in one case, a man is stabbed. They start to call this entity “The Phantom,” and it appears to be a person with three arms and the face of a pig. What is going on? And will Holmes be able to figure out who or what is behind this?
In the last story, we get the return of art collector Roy Darlington from the first volume. Here he has purchased a piece of art from a fellow collector after he passed, and now is uncertain if it’s authentic. So he engages Holmes. Will Holmes be able to figure it out?
Overall, I enjoyed all of the stories. These are some inventive stories. A few come close to being supernatural, but as I noted, all have realistic explanations. I did like the return of characters and wonder if we might see any of them in future volumes.
So what is next? As it relates to Holmes, Murray notes he only has three other stories, so he’ll need seven more for a further volume. Thus, it will be a while before we get the next Holmes collection. The next works from Murray will be the Secret Agent X novel he has been working on and a further non-fiction volume on The Shadow. I think both should be out later this year. I look forward to them.
