THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
Edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh And  Jon L. Lellenberg
Carroll & Graf – Oct 1999
ISBN : 0786706988 - Trade PB

Reviewed by Rachel Hyde, MyShelf.Com
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This collection of stories was first issued in 1987 to mark the centennial of the publication in 1887 of "The Speckled Band", the first story to feature the detectives.  Now the new 1999 reissue has three new stories in it.  There is nothing in this collection by Conan Doyle but fans of the original stories will find plenty to enjoy as modern writers try their
hands at bringing "new light through old windows".
Three of my own favorites were by Stephen King - a locked room mystery solved by Watson - Barry Jones with the seemingly supernatural "Shadows on the Lawn" and Gary Alan Ruse with the equally spooky "Phantom Chamber". Edward Wellen dazzles us with wordplay in "The House That Jack Built" and Anne Perry writes of kidnappings with a difference.  There is humor too from Peter Lovesey and Loren D Estleman who has written a short play showing the Watsons at home.

Not all the stories are set at the time of the originals though.  Joyce Harrington gives us a modern American Watson living with a glamorous female Holmes and Peter Lovesey's "Curious Computer" is an electronic version of the live original.  Moriarty. Lestrade, Irene Adler are all here as is the sequel to the Speckled Band and a Second Naval Treaty.  Finally John Gardiner tells the reader about the real underworld a hundred years ago. There are brief descriptions of the novelists and their works and lots of illustrations by Sideney Paget and others from the original magazine stories.  All in all a feast for fans although for me the originals are still the best.