A Sherlock Holmes Trilogy [Paperback]

Allen J. Heiss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2000

The unmatched wits of Sherlock Holmes are called upon to solve three new mysteries in this fascinating trilogy, sending him and his faithful friend, Dr. Watson, to places throughout Europe during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Supernatural forces are suspected of murder in the case of The Satyr of Stonehenge, as Holmes and Watson comb the moors around the ancient stones and ultimately find clues to buried treasure. The Edwardian art world is the backdrop for The Curious Connoisseur, taking the reader on a delightful and educational journey into the circles of artists, dealers, collectors, and the lucrative business of art forgery. In The Illusion of Glory, Holmes and Watson make their way through the most treacherous places in World War I era Europe, tracking and undermining the activities of those determined to sabotage world peace and productivity. Old and new friends of Sherlock Holmes are sure to enjoy these three thrilling tales and the often charming, sometimes chilling settings in which they take place.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Allen J. Heiss lived in Chicago most of his life, where he owned a business. He and his wife, Dorothy, now live in Wisconsin. Allen's vast array of hobbies and interests include a passion for reading and classical music, and, of course, he's a great fan of Sherlock Holmes since his teenage years.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (November 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595151558
• ISBN-13: 978-0595151554
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,195,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Rudimentary, my dear Watson..., August 20, 2001

By 

Rory Coker (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Sherlock Holmes Trilogy (Paperback)

Here's another candidate for what I hope will remain a fairly short shelf, the Holmes pastiche whose author thought enough of it to pay to have it published, but not enough of it to revise and rewrite it up to any acceptable literary standards. The other volumes on this shelf at my abode are Fullenkamp's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE DRAGONS, and Stefanie's THE CHARTERS AFFAIR.

What we get here are three short novels, averaging about 90 pages apiece. Both dialogue and narration are best described as "rough," and the book has many misprints on top of the author's own continual gaffes. [See if you can guess what punctuation has been inexplicably replaced by a capital C, on p. 57 and many other places in the first adventure! See if you can spot the reference to the "annuls of crime." See Mycroft say, "You must drop it," when he really means (to judge from remarks immediately following) that Sherlock needs to solve the crime as soon as humanly possible.]

What is one to make of a spying adventure during WW I in which the female villainess (who, alas, remains mostly offstage) is named Frederica Von StRada? [I guess it is a mercy she wasn't named Emmie Amelingling, if we have to keep the operatic reference!] What is one to make of Holmes depending upon pendulum dowsing to locate a German submarine base, in the same adventure? Not even Conan Doyle, despite his gullibility and fanatic devotion to what we now call the New Age, would have let Holmes mingle with the supernatural... a realm where Holmes, functioning as Holmes, could only act as a debunker to the foolish beliefs Conan Doyle would have been terrified to have debunked. [See the recent, fine biography of Conan Doyle by Daniel Stashower for more on this point.]

The three cases, apart from the spy adventure, which is all frantic action, involve a not very mysterious murder near Stonehenge, leading to an incomprehensible climax involving buried treasure, and a complex case of art forgery. The art forgery adventure suffers from lack of a Holmesian summing up, so that the reader is left even more mystified than Watson by some of the events. The Stonehenge adventure suffers from total and complete predictablity from the earliest pages onward.

If, like me, you think there was something to be said for Edward D. Wood Jr. as a writer of prose fiction, you may also find a place in your heart for works like this one. Otherwise, I think you really must drop it, Mister or Ms. Gentle Reader!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sadly, earlier negative review appears correct, July 25, 2002

By 

Cyrus Y. Barker "cybarker" (Elephant & Castle, London (I wish)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Sherlock Holmes Trilogy (Paperback)

First, I'll admit that I read only the posted excerpt for this book, so take these comments and the rating with a grain of salt. Just from reading the few pages posted, however, I must concur that the earler negative review of this book is probably correct. In just those few pages, I found numerous sloppy and unnecessary punctuation errors. What's worse, the case in the excerpt is supposed to take place in 1884 -- and yet Watson discusses Holmes' experience with coal tar derivative, which took place during the Great Hiatus of 1891-94; his book, "A Study In Scarlett," which hadn't even see magazine publication in 1884, much less book publication; and the Dreyfus affair, which didn't take place until 1894. Either the author is horribly inept on his historical and Sherlockian facts (which seems unlikely given his back cover bio) or he simply made the careless error of writing 1884 when he meant 1894 and never caught it in proofing the copy. Either way, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the book. Having written a pastiche or two myself, I know it isn't as easy a genre as it may appear, so I'm inclined to be sympathetic toward the author. But he really needs to do a better proofing job in the future--or hire a professional to help out next time.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Sherlock Holmes Trilogy, March 12, 2002

By 

Wm. Adams (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Sherlock Holmes Trilogy (Paperback)

What a pleasure to read a Holmes and Watson critique where they are not chasing Drakula or Frankenstein , or worse yet dealing with a chase on Planet Mars. These 3 short stories take us back to "Victorian and Edwardian Times" and have all the atmosphere of those times which was so interesting in the original stories by Arthur Conrad Doyle.