Customer Reviews

The Resurrected Holmes: New Cases from the Notes of John H. Watson, M.D

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'Resurrected Holmes' is a somewhat convoluted idea well-executed. It is a collection of short Sherlock Holmes stories supposedly written by other well-known authors. In other words, the actual authors who wrote the stories had to write them in the style of the purported authors, who were supposedly endeavouring to write in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Watsonian voice.

Now, that may or may not take your fancy. What is needs to be said is that, by and large, the stories in this volume are of an excellent quality, so even if the literary conceit that is the book's starting point fails to please you, the stories themselves should.

For true Holmes completists, each story is one of the unchronicled stories referred to by Watson in his accounts of Holmes' investigations (with the exception of the final story, which reveals the truth behind 'The Adventure of the Second Stain').

In some cases (for example, 'The Adventure of the Boulevard Assassin' and 'The Madness of Colonel Warburton', ascribed to Jack Kerouac and Dashiell Hammett respectively) the voice of the putative author occassionally overwhelms the Holmesian nature and may be a substantial distraction for those reading this book purely as a Sherlock Holmes collection.

However, some of the stories are good enough to warrant the price of admission alone. I particularly enjoyed 'The Adventure of Ricoletti of the Club Foot (and his abominable wife)', notionally written by P.G. Wodehouse, in that it managed to be both a convincing Holes story while also being a comedy of manners that its putative author might well have appreciated.

Marvin Kaye knows his Sherlock Holmes, and this volume plainly displays his (and the contributing authors) deep-felt love and admiration for the Holmesian canon. Recommended.

The basic premise of this book is to have contemporary famous authors write stories in the styles of deceased famous authors ostensibly working from notes of Sherlock Holmes' cases left behind and never written up by Dr. John Watson. With me so far? Good. This book is obviously an experiment and as such it fails overall. Perhaps three of the stories are outstanding, so much so that they measure up to the best of the original canon. Most do not really reflect the styles of the putative authors but that is not always a flaw. The "Hemingway" tale, for instance, is far better written and much more entertaining than anything Papa ever wrote himself. Another flaw, significant to dedicated Sherlockians, is the glaring lack of familiarity with their subject shown by too many of the authors. One wonders if they have read many Sherlock Holmes adventures or at least watched teleplay versions. Two or three of the stories are absolutely excrement and never should have been included in this collection. Outstanding among the latter is the story by "Jack Kerouac." In his introduction, the editor admits that the tale has no relationship whatsoever to Watson's notes on a Holmes case. In attempting to read the first few pages, it becomes patently clear that the story lacks other important elements like a plot, characters, and a purpose for existing. The editor's reasons for including this piece are beyond even the powers of the Master to deduce. Although the premise of the collection is certainly original, it is ultimately unsuccessful and hopefully will not be repeated. Far better to have writers recreate stories in the voices of Watson and Holmes themselves rather than in the false voices of others.

This book is split into 3 sections: Believable, Long Shot, and Other Detectives. (I know I messed up on the section names but that's the closest I can get.) Most of the stories are just plain good. There are a few truly awful ones like the one by "Jack Kerouac" and the wine merchant one, but then there are some that make up for bombs (the cripple parade and the giant rat of Sumatra.) Not for the purist Sherlockian but really fun for the rest of us. I would've given it 5 stars but I'm saving that rating for the best Sherlock Holmes book I read. (Still looking.)

Fans of the Sherlock Holmes stories know that his biographer and friend, Dr. John H. Watson, had placed a battered tin box full of notes about the great detective's cases in the bank vault of Cox and Company of London. Thought destroyed by Nazi bombs during World War II, it turns out that the box had been sold upon WatsonÕs death to a collector, who hired a variety of writers to finish them. As in any anthology, the results are mixed. But John Betancourt amusingly revives H.G. Wells' socialist hectoring, while Paula Volsky's is chillingly effective in using H.P. Lovecraft's voice to tell the tale of the giant rat of Sumatra. Top prizes goes to Richard Lupoff, whose has Jack Kerouac speed-writing a Holmes story so well that it reads like a lost hallucination from "On the Road," and William DeAndrea for recreating Holmes as Mike Hammer in a deerstalker hat in "The Adventure of the Cripple Parade." Those who hunger for tales about the great detective -- with a difference -- may find themselves irresistibly drawn to "Resurrected Holmes." One wishes only for a sequel, this time featuring famous women writers.

This is an interesting concept and on the whole it has been executed very well. I note a fellow reader didn't like the "Vamberry" story, but to me it captured Thorne Smith perfectly. But a whole star penalty for a truly execrable pastiche, alleged to be Wodehousian in style, by Roberta Rogow. This is possibly the worst thing I have ever read, by someone who appears to be completely unfamiliar with Wodehouse and no great shakes on Holmes. On the whole this book is great fun and worth adding to your collection. But don't allow Ms Rogow to insult your intelligence and just skip over her frankly embarrassing effort.

The only reason I rated this as high as two stars was for Paula Volsky's Lovecraftian take on "The Giant Rat of Sumatra". Having writers imitate other famous writers instead of Doyle to do a Holmes story is one of the dumbest gimmicks ever. There are far too many "hard-boiled" style stories with dialogue totally unsuited to Holmes and Watson, while the one ascribed to Wells had Holmes spouting Wells' socialist propaganda, which is something even Wells left to secondary characters. The story ascribed to Kerouac is totally unreadable. The rest fall of the stories fall somewhere between these extremes.

Overall this is a pretty good collection. The concept of having authors try and write a story not only in the Watsonian style but also in the style of another author (such as Lovecraft, Hemingway, etc.) made for interesting reading. For the most part. Several stories were very good, most were good-to-mediocre, but a few were just plain bad. The "beat generation" rendition and the very strange rendering of "Vamberry the Wine Merchant" left a bad flavor. (Or is that "flavour"?) All in all, better than some. Not as good as others.

Sherlock Holmes fans will thoroughly enjoy this volume though may fall short of loving it. Readers who enjoy the genre should find it a damn good read, all the better for being enumcumbered with a dedication to Holmesian ideals. A couple of the stories are, dare I say it, indifferently written but on the whole, a fine book and good value at Amazon's price.