THE RESURRECTED HOLMES
New Cases from the Notes of John H. Watson, M.D.
edited by Marvin Kaye
A tricky concept: a series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches based on titles of cases referred to in passing by Dr. Watson, each supposedly fleshed out by a different prominent author. Don't worry about disentangling the strands of stylistic parody: Over half the 15 original contributions get the formula exactly backwards, presenting stories supposedly plotted by Theodore Dreiser (actually Terry McGarry), Ernest Hemingway (Morgan Llywelyn), C.S. Forester (Peter Cannon), and Ellery Queen (Edward D. Hoch) in Watson's own voice. The more thoroughgoing stylistic imitations, meanwhile, of P.G. Wodehouse (Roberta Rogow), Jack Kerouac (Richard A. Lupoff), Dashiell Hammett (Carole BuggÇ), Mickey Spillane (William L. DeAndrea), and Rex Stout (veteran editor Kaye) are more conscientious than entertaining. Still, Sherlockians left unsatisfied by Kaye's anthology The Game is Afoot (1994) will be glad to have the Adventures of the Amateur Mendicant Society, the Red Leech, the Giant Rat of Sumatra, and, of course, the Politician, the Lighthouse, and the Trained Cormorant.