Alias Simon Hawkes: Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in New York [Paperback]

Philip J. Carraher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 22, 2003

Sherlock Holmes was often heard to lament the lack of cleverness on the part of the criminal class of London. In Alias Simon Hawkes that lament is vanquished. Here are presented four of the most uniquely clever crimes of murder to ever cross Holmes' path.In 'The Adventure of the Magic Alibi' a killer is sworn by many witnesses to be in their presence at the time of a murder, and so incapable of having killed at the same time, although none of the witnesses actually saw him with them at the time. How is this possible? And how can Holmes break the strength of the magic alibi?In 'The Adventure of the Glass Room' Holmes is presented with the first ever 'locked room within a locked room' mystery, an ingenious tale that is certain to become a mystery classic. Also Alias Simon Hawkes offers us 'The Adventure of the Talking Ghost' and 'The Adventure of the Captive Forger'. Here altogether are four astoundingly clever tales of mystery and suspense that will amply display the great detective's renowned powers of observation and deduction. Sit back, read and enjoy.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Philip Carraher was born in Manhattan and continues to live in New York City, now residing in the borough of Brooklyn with his wife, Ann. His philosophy regarding his books is threefold: first, they should be entertaining, second, they should strive to rise above simple entertainment, i.e., be thought provoking, and, lastly, each new book should not merely be a practiced variation of the previous one.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse (April 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403369925
• ISBN-13: 978-1403369925
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,528,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Philip Carraher was born in Manhattan and continues to live in New York. He is the author of many well-received novels of various genres including the Sherlock Holmes in New York mystery series, suspense books such as "The Killing League" and "Nightside", as well as fantasy and horror novels. He is also the author of one memoir/romance novel ("Wind and Shadow") and one non-fiction theological/philosophical book for tweens and teens ("God vs. The Infinite Monkeys"). At various times in his life, he was an officer in a major financial institution on Wall Street, received a Certificate of Appreciation from the U.S Army Special Forces Group, has been an artist and illustrator, a fair rhythm guitar player and song writer, and received a small note of appreciation from Mr. Joe DiMaggio (jotted on a photo) which hangs on the wall of his writing room to this day. He remains a Yankees fan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please don't let this be the last!, November 17, 2003

By 

Darkendale "Raven" (VA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Alias Simon Hawkes: Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in New York (Paperback)

The character of Simon Hawkes (Sherlock in disguise in New York) is great! I have often felt that other stories of the so-called "lost years" ignored one crucial fact: Holmes could change his name, his looks, etc. but you could never take the detective out of the man. As he often said, his work was his life. This author needs to write more in the same style as his previous books. Both get five Sherlock Stars from me! Quothe the Raven...

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars CLever and Original, June 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Alias Simon Hawkes: Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in New York (Paperback)

These are well written tales that are sure to be enjoyed by anyone who likes a good story and mystery but which will prove, I think, to be especially tantalizing to the real mystery affectionado. As most mystery lovers know, Edgar Allan Poe originated the "locked room" mystery with his "Murders in the Rue Morgue". Since then the "locked room mystery" (in which the victim's body is found in a locked room with seemingly no possible way out for a killer) has been a staple of the mystery genre. "The Sign of Four" by A. Conan Doyle, the Holmes novella, was also a locked room mystery.

What makes two stories in this collection so good is that they are very clever variations on the locked room mystery. There is originality here which is pleasant to see in a genre so much written in that one might think no further originality is possible. Yet here it is. "The Adventure of the Magic Alibi", a novella, turns the locked room story around and has the murder victim's body found outside the locked room while it is the killer who is inside the locked room with seemingly no way out.

So certain are the witnesses there on the night of the murder that the killer must have been in the locked room that the police are unable to arrest the killer even though the victim has written the murderer's name in blood before dying! And these witnesses are absolutely positive the killer was in the room with them despite never having actually seen him at the time! An impossibility! Well, not quite. That very "impossible" plot is pulled off nicely here.

The second variation on the locked room mystery is "The Adventure of the Glass Room" which is (unless someone discovers another) the first and only "locked room within a locked room" mystery. Here the victim(s) are found inside not one locked room but two! What is impressive about this story, besides the cleverness of the plot, is the fact that the existence of a glass room inside another room is so well explained that it seems rational under the circumstances. Very often clever "puzzle" plots outdo themselves by seeming totally unrealistic (as with a few mysteries by the great John Dickson Carr)but that is not the case with this story, which is grounded in a sense of 1893 reality.

The tale entitled "The Adventure of the Art Forger" is as much a suspense tale as a mystery and has its own kind of "tongue in cheek" connection with A. Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb". Sherlockians will appreciate the deduction made here as it harkens back to Doyle's own Holmes story. As with Doyle's story, the deduction is a simple one if the reader is paying attention.

Then there is "The Adventure of the Talking Ghost", a nice tale of murder and seances. Here is a serial killer plot that could have been expanded into its own novel if the author chose to do so.This story ends the book nicely with a suggestion by the author that Sherlock Holmes is about to leave his hiding place of New York City (remember that Sherlock is running from the revenge of Moriarty's gang) and "become Sherlock Holmes again. " That is, return to England, to his home. As we Sherlockians know, Holmes did reappear quite dramatically causing his friend Watson to faint dead away for the first and only time in his life while, at the same time, causing Holmes' fans to applaud with joy...Very nice job here indeed.--Behind the Curtain Review

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ingenious Mystery Tales, February 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Alias Simon Hawkes: Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in New York (Paperback)

As discovered in Carraher's previous Simon Hawkes novel, "The Adventure of the Dead Rabbits Society", Sherlock Holmes, fearful that Professor Moriarty's surviving gang members will hunt him down to take his life, has crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the new Continent. There he has taken up residence in New York City, residing at a males-only club called "The Dead Rabbits Society", living under the alias of Simon Hawkes.
"Alias Simon Hawkes" brings us four more of Holmes' adventures in New York City, and they are unique crimes to say the least. These are ingenious murder mysteries.

With `The Adventure of the Glass Room", we are offered the first "locked room WITHIN a locked room" mystery ever written. It is certain to become a classic in the mystery genre.
Alwyn Pritchett has had built in his parlor a room with walls and ceiling of glass, the purpose of which is to forbid the trickery of any psychic he hires to help him contact his deceased wife. He has been fooled before by false psychics and is taking this amazing step of building a room with glass walls to hold the next séance in which he partakes, to assure there will be no further tricks.
A psychic agrees to perform the séance under the conditions he has set forth. Together they enter his parlor and then enter the glass room. The sole glass door is bolted shut from the inside. The other members of Pritchett's family then leave the parlor after which the parlor doors are also locked by the butler. The two, Pritchett and the psychic, are therefore sitting inside a room, bolted shut from the inside, that is also inside another locked room.
Minutes later two shots ring out and there, to the horror of all, is Pritchett and the psychic are found dead, both shot through the head, an apparent murder/suicide. What else could it be, for they are found dead with the door to the glass room still bolted from the inside. The murder weapon on the floor at Pritchett's feet. The doors to the parlor too reminded locked until the shots were heard and the butler came running with the key to open them. It must be that Pritchett shot the psychic and then killed himself, determine the police. There CANNOT be any other possibility.
Yet there is another possibility. Both Pritchett and the psychic were in fact brutally murdered and it is left to Hawkes/Holmes to unravel the shrewd and cunning manner in which the double murder was executed.
"The Adventure of the Magic Alibi" is the longest of the mysteries. At over 100 pages it is a novella. It tells of an inventive plan of murder, in which the killer, planning the deed down to the smallest detail, has devised a means by which he can persuade twenty-one good citizens to swear to the police that they knew where he was at the time of the murder, and so prove him innocent of the crime, even though not one of those witnesses actually saw him at the time. They continue to swear to his innocence even though his victim has written his very name in her own blood just before dying, declaring him to be her killer! The alibi is so strong that the police cannot arrest him. Impossible but true! It is left to Holmes to solve the mystery, to break the ingenious "magic" alibi, and bring the killer to appropriate justice.
In "The Adventure of the Captive Forger" we have the story of William Lancaster, an art appraiser who is hired by the mysterious Charles Buonocore to come to his house in the faraway and isolated countryside of the Bronx to judge the authenticity of some drawings he is thinking of purchasing. Lancaster agrees to go and arrives at the lonely house, deep in the countryside, late at night. He finishes his appraisal too late to return home that night and so sleeps over. He is awakened in the dead of night to the sound of screams and a scuffle outside his bedroom door. Investigating, he sees Buonocore fighting with a beautiful and very frightened young woman. Any chance he has of assisting the woman is taken from him as he is hit on the head from behind and knocked out. When he wakes up he is back at the train station far from the farmhouse in which he was sleeping.
Lancaster is certain the young woman is in trouble and is being held by Buonocore against her will, but he has no idea how to return to the house to rescue her, the last leg of his journey being made in a long carriage ride along dark trails with the window curtains down.
He tells Simon Hawkes of his dilemma. The woman is in very serious trouble. He wants to help her but he cannot, not knowing how to once again find the house. It is up to Hawkes to discover the location and so help rescue the "damsel in distress".
In the last of the tales, "The Adventure of the Taking Ghost", a wealthy tycoon, Joseph Julius Carter, and two friends go to a séance and there are startled to hear the voice of his deceased daughter coming forth from the psychic's mouth. What his daughter declares is as startling as hearing her speak. She tells the audience that her death was not an accident and that she was in fact murdered! The psychic cannot say more after making that pronouncement and tells Carter he will have to come back another time to hear his daughter say more.
Carter returns, but not to listen to more talk from beyond, rather to kill the psychic to silence the accusations of his own dead daughter! The unusual motive is to silence a ghost! However, the psychic is able to defend her self and ends up shooting Carter dead.
A clear case of self defense. Or is it? Did Carter kill his own daughter and so desire to silence her accusing voice from the other side of the grave? Only Hawkes can see through the mystery and the lies to reveal the truth.

These are four inventive tales that mystery lovers everywhere are sure to enjoy immensely and that Sherlock Holmes fans must have.