Baker Street Irregulars: The Game is Afoot: 13 Authors with Even MORE New Takes on Sherlock Holmes

by Michael A. Ventrella (Editor), Jonathan Maberry (Editor)

Overview

Thirteen contemporary authors—including Narrelle M. Harris and Jody Lynn Nye—riff on the iconic detective Sherlock Holmes in this imaginative anthology.

In the first Baker Street Irregulars anthology, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant and beloved character appeared as a hologram, a parrot with great deductive skill, and on a reality show. Now in this second edition, thirteen more authors offer their own highly original takes on the mystery genre’s greatest crime solver.

In Keith DeCandido’s “Six Red Dragons,” Sherlock is a young girl in modern New York City. In Sarah Stegall’s “Papyrus,” Sherlock is a female librarian in ancient Egypt. In Daniel M. Kimmel’s “A Scandal in Chelm,” Sherlock is a rabbi. Derek Beebe sends Sherlock to the moon, while Mike Strauss casts him as a comic book character.

The settings of these stories range from a grade school classroom to an alien spaceship. While preserving the timeless charm and intrigue of Sherlock Holmes, these authors pen stories of the world’s greatest detective as you’ve never seen him before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635763768
Publisher:	Diversion Books
Publication date:	04/30/2020
Series:	Baker Street Irregulars , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	294
Sales rank:	464,789
File size:	1 MB

Table of Contents

Introduction: My Old Friend Sherlock Holmes v

"The Problem of the Three Journals" Narrelle M. Harris 1

Sherlock is an Australian hipster

"Six Red Dragons" Keith R. A. DeCandido 18

Sherlock is a young girl in modern New York City

"The Adventure of the Diode Detective" Jody Lynn Nye 38

Sherlock is a home security system

"Investigations upon Taxonomy of Venomous Squamates" R. Rozakis 52

Sherlock is a graduate student at a lab

"Papyrus" Sarah Stegall 75

Sherlock is a female librarian in ancient Egypt

"My Dear Wa'ats" Hildy Silverman Sherlock is an alien ship's captain 93

"A Scandal in Chelm" Daniel M. Kimmel Sherlock is a rabbi 118

"The Affair of the Green Crayon" Stephanie M. McPherson 127

Sherlock is a grade school teacher

"A Study in Space" Derek Beebe 151

Sherlock is a teenager on a Moon station

"Sin Eater and the Adventure of Ginger Mary" Gordon Linzner 172

Sherlock is a "Sin Eater" in rural post-Civil War America

"The Adventure of the Double-Sized Final Issue" Mike Strauss 192

Sherlock is a comic book character

"A Very Important Nobody" Chuck Regan 212

Sherlock is an investigator on one of Jupiter's moons

"Ho Ho Holmes" Nat Gertler 238

Sherlock is Santa Claus

About the Authors 253

Editorial Reviews

04/16/2018
Ventrella and Maberry’s second anthology to feature Sherlockian protagonists who are “not white British males in frock coats” is only slightly more successful than 2017’s middling Baker Street Irregulars: Thirteen Authors with New Takes on Sherlock Holmes. Several of the 13 entries lose their punch by signaling the particular Conan Doyle adventures that they are inspired by. The table of contents’ teaser descriptions (e.g., “Sherlock is a home security system,” “Sherlock is a teenager on a Moon station,” “Sherlock is Santa Claus”) may indicate the originality of the contributors’ concepts, but nearly all the stories fall short of making a non-white, non-British detective a plausible homage to the original. The one notable exception is Narrelle M. Harris’s amusing “The Problem of the Three Journals,” which features an “Australian hipster” Sherlock who becomes the “resident smartarse” at the Sign of Four coffee bar that he sets up with his new friend, barista John Watson. Readers looking for creative stories that aren’t pastiches and yet capture the canon’s spirit will be better served by the theme anthologies of Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger (Echoes of Sherlock Holmes, etc.). (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly