Sherlock Holmes and the voice from the crypt / Donald Thomas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thomas, Donald, 1934-2022.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930.

Holmes, Sherlock--Fiction.

Holmes, Sherlock.

Watson, John H. (Fictitious character)--Fiction.

Watson, John H.

Watson, John H. (Fictitious character).

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930--Parodies, imitations, etc.

Doyle, Arthur Conan.

Genre:

Detective and mystery stories, English.

Fiction.

Parodies, imitations, etc.

Parodies (Literature)

Physical Description:

340 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First Carroll and Graf edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Carroll & Graf, 2002.

Summary:

The famous tin box in the attic of the house at 221B Baker Street -- perhaps the best known address in crime literature -- is again unlocked by the Great Detective's loyal companion, Dr. John H. Watson, in this collection of six masterly new tales contrived by Donald Thomas. Again, as in Thomas's popular volume The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes, the cache of the celebrated detective's private papers provides Watson with files on intriguing true-crime cases that captured the public imagination -- and challenged Holmes's powers of ratiocination -- in the years surrounding the turn of the last century.

Crossing historical fact with detective fiction, Thomas introduces Holmes in these stories to clients as illustrious as Oscar Wilde, a man whose teeth might damn him, and as infamous as Dr. Crippen, an errant husband wrongly, in Holmes's view, condemned to death by hanging for the brutal murder and dismemberment of his wife. And in his investigation of an international swindling scheme that threatens to topple the British government, Holmes meets -- indeed, is assailed and arrested by -- a young police sergeant who will become the sleuth's future ally, Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard.

Among Holmes's other confounding cases in this engaging collection are the matter of the Naked Bicyclists, whose nocturnal rides on a farm in rural Essex lead to the discovery of some grim secrets buried beneath the blackthorn trees; the woe of the Sporting Major, whose lies entangle him hopelessly in charges of murder; and the file on the Hygienic Husband, in which a bathtub proves to be the crucial clue in the rescue of a young woman from an unscrupulous bigamist.

Only a voice from beyond the grave, however, can provide the final, essential clue in the case of the Talking Corpse, wherein horror leaps from the shadows in the Lambeth slums and assumes the shape of a villain who, in Holmes's estimation, may surpass even Professor Moriarty in the extreme degree of his human deprvity.

Contents:

The two 'failures' of Sherlock Holmes

The case of the racing certainty

The case of the naked bicyclists

The case of the sporting major

The case of the hygienic husband

The voice from the crypt : the case of the talking corpse.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 336-340).

ISBN:

0786709731

OCLC:

48957627