There are 13 stories plus one ringer, an engaging comic set in a bug world and featuring Inspector Mantis, complete with deerstalker and calabash pipe, bringing down the evil Spangleworm. The others vary a bit in quality, with the best being Zoë Sharp’s 'Hounded,' a retelling of the Baskerville story by a PI who was on the moor for her own reasons. It honors the source, and so, curiously, does Inspector Mantis, sounding most Holmesian as he denounces the 'miscreant' and tells Watson (called Hooper here) that he remains alone because, 'My courtship is with crime.'
With their fourth Sherlock Holmes short story collection, authors Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger have put together something special ... Being a huge Holmes fan myself, I was especially wowed by the last story, 'Hounded' by Zoë Sharp... This is a terrific final entry in a worthy collection that should please all Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts far and wide.
King and Klinger’s entertaining fourth Holmes-themed anthology...features well-known authors representing genres ranging from cozy to horror ... This volume contains something for every fan of the Baker Street sleuth.
...King and Klinger have commissioned 14 new stories that make up their wildest, weirdest crop yet ... The goal not to write a straightforward period pastiche but to produce something more loosely inspired by the canon suggests at least three criteria by which the entries might be judged: their success as mysteries, the fidelity or ingenuity with which they replicate or transform notable thematic or stylistic devices of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, and the originality of the concepts that link them to the sacred writings. Virtually none of this year’s crop succeeds in all three of these areas ... Only 'The Adventure of the Six Sherlocks,' Toni L.P. Kelner’s inventive, amusing story of a fatal poisoning at a Baker Street Con, hits the mark in every category. Fans will argue endlessly about which others are the real keepers.
