I picked up the first of a new annual journal from Belanger Books, done in conjunction with the Arthur Conan Doyle Society: Steel True, Blade Straight 2022 Annual. It is subtitled “A Journal of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle-Inspired Stories, Poems, and Scholarship.” At this time, there are annuals for 2023, 2024-25, and 2025-26. I hope to get the rest and review them.
If you are curious about the Arthur Conan Doyle Society, or the ACD Society, it is a group dedicated to studying and enjoying the works of Doyle. They have a website with full information, and for a nominal annual fee, you can obtain a membership card and three newsletters a year.
The 2022 Annual comes in at about 440 pages. This is larger than the following volumes, which are closer to 300 pages. About half the volume focuses on Sherlock Holmes, the other half on Doyle.
For both, there are new stories, poems, essays, and scholarship. The Holmes fiction is traditional in approach. There are 36 items here, so I will only comment on those I found especially interesting. Things kick off with a pair of introductions and a foreword.
For ACD fiction, some of the pieces include “Thunderbeard” by Robert Stapleton. We get a team-up of Professor Challenger and Arthur Conan Doyle. They lead an expedition to Canada to find Aztlan, a lost land that may be the original home of the Aztecs. What will they find?
From Stephen Herczeg, we get a mystery solved by Doyle. David Marcum gives us a story featuring Doyle, Holmes, and Watson, with Doyle serving as Watson’s literary agent to get the Holmes stories published, and how that came about.
For Holmes fiction, there are six stories. One is “The Red Herring League” by Bradley Harper, which is presented as items left in a safety deposit box for 100 years by Professor Moriarty. It is a fun piece, and I liked the use of different font styles.
Will Murray provides the longest Holmes tale, which I previously read in one of his Holmes collections. Here, Watson is approached by a soldier he met in Afghanistan. The man relates a bizarre tale about an officer he knew in South Africa who died during the Boer War. After visiting a medium, the soldier goes to the man’s widow, only to find the supposedly dead officer alive. This story has elements of the supernatural, which is in keeping with Conan Doyle’s own interests.
From D.J. Tyrer, we get two stories. The first involves the sale of Jumbo the elephant by the London Zoo to P.T. Barnum, unless the government has any say in the matter. The second is a sort-of sequel to an original ACD story, in which the villain has returned and hopes Holmes will clear him of a murder he claims he did not commit. Or is that really what happened?
For nonfiction, we have several pieces. One of the ACD items focuses on H.H. Holmes. While I knew of the serial killer, I was not aware of many details about him. This was an interesting look at his life and his sort-of connection to Doyle. For Holmes scholarship, we get an article examining walking sticks and canes in the canon.
At the end are two special sections. One is tied to the 2022 Sherlock Holmes Week in Keene, N.H., which produced a Holmes pastiche by Belanger. The other is tied to the 2022 R. Joel Senter Sr. Memorial Essay Contest, with the first- and second-place winners. This contest is for high school students and is run by a scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars.
Overall, this is a really good volume. I look forward to the other annuals. One thing I wish we had is some information on the contributors. A few I know, but many I do not.
While I get enough new Holmes stories, I am especially curious about what we will see for Doyle. I hope we get more stories involving Professor Challenger, as he is another Conan Doyle character I find interesting.
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