THE CONFIDENTIAL CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

Interested historians may someday trace Sherlock Holmes's shift from exemplary detective to all-purpose cultural icon to Kaye's third anthology of Sherlockiana (The Resurrected Holmes, 1996, etc.). Except for what turns out to be an uncharacteristically ingenious entry by Henry Slesar, Holmes is tricked out in every guise from Malibu Barbie to Astronaut Barbie--trading compliments with Jacques Futrelle on the doomed Titanic (Edward D. Hoch), getting duped still again by Irene Adler (Aline Myette-Volsky), infiltrating the Fenian Brotherhood at the behest of Professor Moriarty (Carole BuggÆ’), contracting an Arabian Nights marriage (Shariann Lewitt), going undercover in all-too-successful drag (Craig Shaw Gardner), and providing, with Watson, an unsettling preview of Laurel and Hardy's most famous short (Patrick LoBrutto)--except that of Inductive Barbie. Readers with a taste for the bizarre will find the collection typified by Jay Sheckley's fantasia on memory, sex, and circus freaks; purists are hereby warned. Kaye would've provided a real service for consumers by labeling this farrago of 15 stories The Contortions of Sherlock Holmes.