Please recommend me some non-Doyle Sherlock Holmes novels/stories

I love Sherlock Holmes. I’ve read through all the Doyle stories and quite a few of the non-Doyle novels and short story collections, but I’m looking for more. A few bits of helpful info:

  • I don’t want stories where Holmes is a secondary character (there’s an author, Larry Miller I think, who wrote a good first Holmes novel but then his subsequent novels made Holmes secondary to his own character). I like Holmes and Watson as the leads.

  • Nothing overly romantic, unless it’s really believable. I didn’t care for the Laurie R. King series where Holmes married his young protege. The first couple were okay, but the later ones were (IMO) kind of dull and focused on the girl more than on Holmes.

  • Nothing where Holmes is really old. I prefer him in his prime, or else younger.

  • I like stories with a bit more ‘physical’ component in them (that is, where Holmes has to deal with goons, do something athletic, etc.) more than the ones where he just sits in his study and solves the crime. One of my favorite Holmes authors is Carol Bugge’, author of “Star of India”. Another is Nicholas Meyer (“The Seven Percent Solution” and “The West End Horror”)

  • Out-there pairings and supernatural stuff (for example, Holmes vs. Dracula, Holmes meets Houdini) are great–love 'em!

  • Ditto psychological stuff and anything where Holmes is dealing with his personal demons (such as cocaine).

Given all of that, can anyone suggest some good stuff? Preferably either still in print or easy to find on Ebay. Thanks!

Not Sherlock but at the same time Sherlock protected London.

I enjoyed the Shadows of Sherlock.

Google Sherlock Holmes pastiches and you’ll be overwhelmed.

This site has a good list, somewhat annotated, and so does this other site.

Here’s another list with reviews of the titles when you click on them.

I’ll recommend you look into The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, by Nicholas Meyer. I raised my eyebrows at this book, but decided to give it a try anyway. I actually ended up enjoying it after finishing it, but I had to read it completely before I made up my mind. I’m glad I picked it up that day in the used bookstore after all. Even though it’s not quite what you were wanting, give it a try, it might surprise you.

Hmmm, that Sudafed I took must be addling me. :frowning: I didn’t see your mention of The Seven Percent Solution when I first read the OP. :o With all the smoke in the air from the grassfires down south, my allergies are making me miserable. (I just hope that they get them under control soon, with no more loss of life. My prayers go out to those who have taken losses from this.)

Already did, thanks! It’s in my OP above (bullet point 5). Great book, and the movie wasn’t bad, either.

Ooh, my first simul-post! :slight_smile:

Ah, cool! Those (especially the second one) are just the sort of thing I was looking for–that, and some personal recommendations/warnings from folks who’ve read the books. Thanks!

My personal favorites are collected in The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes. They’re stories by Doyle’s son, Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr (who I believe wrote several Holmes radio scripts). A lot of purists don’t like these, but I think they captured the style and spirit of Doyle far better than any other imitators.

I like the Nicholas Meyer books (he eventually wrote three, including the less familiar The Canary Trainer, wherein Holmes meets The Phantom of the Opera), but he ceertainly doesn’t have Doyle’s style.

I also like Boyer’s The Giant Rat of Sumatra, which is canonical and pretty well done. Don’t confuse it with others of the same title.
A lot of Holmes pastiches are fun but niot up to par. I like Loren Estleman’s two about Holmes meeting Dracula and Dr. Jeckyll, and Cay van Ash’s ten Years Beyond Baker treet, where he meets Fu Manchu (two other folks wrote stories where he meets Fu Manchu as well), but more often than not the style fails. Stay away, by al means, from Philip Jose Farmer’s The Adventure of the Peerless Peer (Holmes meets Tarzan!), and Stephen King’s story in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Some of the stories in Sherlock Holmes in Orbit[ are cute. I kinda like “The Adventure of the Russian Nobleman” (or whatever the title is)

I haven’t seen it mentioned here, but last year Caleb Carr released *The Italian Secretary*, which I liked a lot.

Stephen King once wrote a Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson story. It appeared in Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and it states that that case was the first one in which Watson solved the mystery before Holmes did.

The titular story in Anthony Burgess’s collection of short stories The Devil’s Mode, is an excellent Holmes story, and all of the other stories of first rate, as well.

I am reluctant to contribute because I thought that the 7 percent solution was horrible and if you enjoyed that - well, I’m not convinced we see Holmes the same way…

However, you might try David Pirie’s books

They are not about Holmes, but have a “Holmesian” feel to them.

Yes, I read that one. Pretty good–not one of my favorites, but enjoyable. Thanks!

I guess it kinda depends on what you like about Holmes (and what you thought was horrible about T7PS). I like many Holmes stories, for different reasons. I’m pretty easygoing about what I like as long as the author doesn’t take too many liberties with the character or go too far into the “Victorian boring” writing style trying to be “authentic.” It worked for Doyle since he wrote almost all short stories, but it drags a bit in a novel.

Thanks, I appreciate the recommendation! Not really interested in “Holmesian feel,” though–it’s the character himself that does it for me. Still, maybe I’ll check them out–the one you described sounds interesting.

Neil Gaiman wrote a Lovecraft/Holmes pastiche called “A Study in Emerald”. It was available on the web for a while when it was nominated for a Hugo. It’s part of a collection of stories called “Shadows over Baker Street”.

(Running late for work otherwise I’d google for links.)

I’ve already noted my feelings for King’s effort in #11 above. Not my cuppa.

If you’re using “Victorian boring” to describe laborious and unsuccessful efforts to ape Doyle’s style, then it’s clever. But if you really feel that Doyle (and his successful imitators) is “Victorian boring”, then what are you doing reading Holmes in the first place?

By the way, if it’s Doyle and his style you do like, there’s lots of other Doyle you can read. I have a volume entitled something like “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” featuring a number of his other stories, including two “apocryphal” stories that mention a detectivem, but don’t give his name. I also recommend his “The Lost World”. Get the annotated edition that came out a few years ago, if you can.
And if you like Victorian detectives, there’s a wealth of sources out there. Thirty some tyears ago BBC and PBS ran a seruies “The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes”, and Penguin published three volumes of stories from the series. I recommend them if you can find them.

I enjoyed “Sherlock Holmes’ War of the Worlds”, by Wellman. A bit episodic, but fun. Professor Challenger also appears.

“Hoka Hoka Hoka” by Gordon Dickson and Poul Anderson features a story loosely based around “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. Keep in mind though, most of the characters in this story are teddybear-like aliens, with the exception of a couple of confused humans trying to keep the teddy bears under control. Not exactly what you’re used to, probably, but a very entertaining read.

Also probably not what you’re looking for, but there was an episode of CSI called “Who Shot Sherlock Holmes?” which involved a group of Holmes-LARPers. Pretty entertaining, and the investigators end up using their knowledge of the Sherlock Holmes stories to help solve the crime.

“Look, can you drop the fake accent already?”
“I can’t. I’m English.”
“Oh. Sorry.”