Customer Reviews

Sherlock Holmes and the Panamanian Girls

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So common has the Holmes pastiche become over the past 30 years that it almost forms its own literary genre, apart from mysteries and historical novels. Veteran stage, TV and screen actor Frankie Thomas wrote a number of Holmes novels in the mid-1980s, including GOLDEN BIRD, SACRED SWORD, TREASURE TRAIN and MASQUERADE MURDERS. The series of paperback originals was cut short when the US publisher went paws-up, so that a number of Frankie's novels were never published here, although they were issued in Germany, Israel and other spots overseas where there live many Holmes fans.

Now the "lost" novels are being published in the US for the first time, and here is another edition of the first of them, in which Holmes and Watson tackle a baffling case that first seems to turn on shady international finance, then on the whereabouts of four priceless oil paintings, the "Panamanian Girls".

If Frank's take on this genre is new to you, I might mention that Frank's Holmes, although quite true to Conan Doyle's original, is more like Doc Savage and The Shadow in relying heavily on a small core of highly specialized assistants--- in this novel, one of them is the legendary safe cracker Jimmy Valentine!

I found it to be compelling reading and the turn-of-the-century English color and locales seem authentic.

It's great to have these novels in print, and I hope the other "lost" episodes will soon follow. Highly recommended for fans of the World's First Consulting Detective.

So common has the Holmes pastiche become over the past 25 years that it almost forms its own literary genre, apart from mysteries and historical novels. Veteran stage, TV and screen actor Frankie Thomas wrote a number of Holmes novels in the mid-1980s, including GOLDEN BIRD, SACRED SWORD, TREASURE TRAIN and MASQUERADE MURDERS. The series of paperback originals was cut short when the US publisher went paws-up, so that a number of Frankie's novels were never published here, although they were issued in Germany, Israel and other spots overseas where there live many Holmes fans.

Now the "lost" novels are being published in the US for the first time, and here is the first of them, in which Holmes and Watson tackle a baffling case that first seems to turn on shady international finance, then on the whereabouts of four priceless oil paintings, the "Panamanian Girls".

If Frank's take on this genre is new to you, I might mention that Frank's Holmes, although quite true to Conan Doyle's original, is more like Doc Savage and The Shadow in relying heavily on a small core of highly specialized assistants--- in this novel, one of them is the legendary safe cracker Jimmy Valentine!

I found it to be compelling reading and the turn-of-the-century English color and locales seem authentic.

It's great to have these novels in print, and I hope the other "lost" episodes will soon follow. Highly recommended for fans of the World's First Consulting Detective.

Decency demands that the good things should be commented upon first. So, here it goes:

1. The story is very good and realistic.

2. The English used on behalf of Watson is brilliant and authentic, sometimes better than the precise dictum used by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

3. Holmes does nothing that grossly violates the canonical principles.

However, the deficit side can not be covered entirely and the following points emerge from it:

1. Sherlock Holmes would have NEVER employed so many "specialists" (including two crack 'safesmith'-s, one professional con-man, one political agent with numerous questionable skills, etc. etc.)to do some job that he has taken up.

2. Watson's repeated query related to potential pecuniary benefits of the exercise in question becomes boring at one stage.

3. In his effort to surround Holmes with the 'best-of-the-best' types, the author has created characters whose very presence in Victorian London would have made Sherlock Holmes (and also Mycroft Holmes) redundant.

4. Basil Selkirk has seemingly become something like "deux-ex-machina" for the author, because whenever the author and his Holmes faces an unsurmountable situation, pop comes the Selkirk.

Overall, the novel is a good-pacy read, but don't expect serious stuff.

Here's a new edition of one of the difficult-to- find Holmes novels written by Frank Thomas in the early 1980s. Holmes and Watson tackle a difficult and confusing case that first seems to turn on shady international finance, later on the theft of four priceless oil paintings. If Frank's take on Sherlock is new to you, I might mention that this Sherlock, while being very true to Conan Doyle's original, is more like Doc Savage and the Shadow in depending heavily on a small team of aides, each with a unique talent.

There are some bizarre glitches in the printing of this trade paperback, including a "footnote" that appears in the midst of the text on p. 7, but actually belongs in a later chapter, perhaps Ch.10. Chapter 15 is (for no reason) in a totally different font from the other chapters. And etc. Fortunately the story moves so well, and events are so continually surprising, that the typesetting peculiarities are not at all distracting.

It's great to have this book in print again, and I hope the other Thomas Holmes novels will soon follow. They belong on everyone's shelf of Holmes pastiches. Indeed, they deserve a special place of merit.