Fun "fan fic". First mystery especially was excellent.

I've always enjoyed Sherlock Holmes' stories and was very excited to find this book. The author continues to tell the story in true Sherlock Holmes fashion, through the eyes of Dr. John Watson. The title also piqued my interest. Holmes executed? Unthinkable. I couldn't put it down! Wonderful stories, great storytelling. I see that it is #3 of a series which definitely makes me happy.

A viper bit Milverton- what was his plight?
The viper, not Milverton, died of the bite.


Execution of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of five not-so short stories. In my opinion out of the five stories here only three are very good: they keep you guessing and maintain the thrill throughout; and the rest two are not bad and can be enjoyed. What makes this pastiche of Holmes different: We are shown the non-super human side of our beloved sleuth. By 'non-super human' I mean 'ordinary'. (But mind you that ordinary-ness of Sherlock Holmes is way above than our standards of ordinary-ness). In the first story itself we are shown the other side of Holmes, which we'd never seen, where Holmes struggles for his life and tries to save himself from his blood thirsty enemies. In all these stories there is one more thing different about Holmes is that we actually see what Holmes is doing to catch his prey or saving his client - unlike the originals where we do not exactly know everything what Holmes is doing (just like JOKER from The Dark Knight). All in all, this book shows Sherlock Holmes from a different perspective: which can have its admirers, and critics.


1). The execution of Sherlock Holmes: 3.8/5.0
It is the first of the five stories, and is the title of the book. It was 90 pages long. The title says very much about the story. Sherlock Holmes is kidnapped and is kept as a prisoner by his blood thirsty enemies. He is given a trial at their court; and is sentenced to be hanged till death. The main focus is: how Holmes escape from the captivity of his enemies. Overall the jailbreak part was fascinating and thrilling.

2). The Case of the Greek Key: 2.8/5.0
It is the second story. This story is all about cryptography, and code breaking. People at Admiralty intercepts some secret information being passed to German Navy using Morse code. And soon it is clear that there is a spy in Admiralty who is helping in sending the highly sensitive information to Germans; but it is the encrypted information they are not able to retrieve- they cannot break the code. After two months of futile efforts, at last, the Admiral (Fischer from Naval Treaty) approaches Sherlock Holmes. The premise of the story was very interesting, but I didn't liked this story much. I felt it a bit dry and, for me, it was a just an average read. It lacks that awe inspiring genius of Sir Doyle. The last story Execution of Holmes was better than this one.


3). The Case of Peasenhall Murder : 2.5/5.0
...I really don't remember much of the story but I'm pretty sure that Holmes never catches the real culprit.


4). The Case of the Phantom Chambermaid: 3.6/5.0
I was taken by surprise on finding this story to be interesting, satisfying and well executed. It all starts with a very ordinary case which ultimately culminates into something really extraordinary and ends with descent, if not great, climax. I enjoyed this story very much.

5). The Queen of the Night: 3.8/5.0
This story was woven in a very different style than previous four stories. This last story was connected with the first story 'Execution of Sherlock Holmes', and the thread was Col. Moriarty and a priceless diamond. The story moved quite straight forwardly but always keeping the reader guessing and not revealing much. The climax could've been a bit more revealing and detailed but it end a little too prematurely. But it was interesting read.

awash in irrelevant detail as no doyle was, homes as often out of character as in. unfortunate, as the same author writing his own series, away from comparison, might be rather enjoyable...

Suprised

I enjoyed it ... but I'm a major Sherlock Holmes fan ... so ... if you follow the basic rules and don't mess with the characters too much I'll be happy. I particularly enjoyed the references to the original series.

1.5

The original review of this book is posted on my blog...

To read the original review of this book, click here...

This was well done and was overall an excellent imitation of the original style. I will have to re-read to get all the details - I was a bit tired but interested in getting to the end, and there were some points my brain didn’t really get and will have to revisit - by all this, I mean that I will very likely re-read these as I re-read the original stories by Conan Doyle. There are a few things that connect together here and there in the book, especially between the first and last stories. That was a nice touch.

Five excellent short novels!

Five finely wrought tales of Sherlock Holmes. Enjoyed the read and description is true. I’m glad that there are more SH tales in the making. Clean.


Rereading as I forgot to rate (and enjoyed both times) but paid twice — guess that makes up for it.

The best I've read! Good researching, excellent historical placement, good characterization. Lovely, overall. A good example of something done well, for love.

I liked the stories in this book. There are 5 separate stories as told by Dr. Watson about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I am not a strict Holmes aficionado so I did not nit pick it apart and compare it to the Holmes timeline and so forth, as a lot of people did. And maybe because of that I enjoyed the stories for what they are. I think if you go into it that way you will enjoy them. This was the first of the Holmes by Thomas that I have read and I will read the others by him as well.