The Reader is Warned

There’s an old saying that the third time’s the charm. Having read two of Donald Thomas’ Sherlock Holmes continuations (The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and the Voice from the Crypt), I was hoping that this saying would apply to the third of these collections, The Execution of Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

My previous two Donald Thomas reviews went through each individual story, giving a brief plot summary and my opinion of the story in question, but I don’t much relish the prospect of doing the same with this book. So instead, I’ll go over the general premise of the book and just what has gone wrong.

Tales from the Crypt

I had the great pleasure last year to read Donald Thomas’ The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes, a book which reimagined several famous murder cases as though they were Sherlockian adventures. My very favourite of the lot was an ingenious retelling of the adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, revealing that it was a fictionalised account of the death of the notorious blackmailer Charles Augustus Howell, and turning it into a prequel to The Final Problem. It became one of my new favourite Sherlockian pastiches.

Naturally, I couldn’t pass up the chance to read more from this series, so I went with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice from the Crypt. It’s another collection of Sherlockian pastiches. There are six of them in all, but one of them is quite short, and the other (the titular story) is probably novella-length. As with the first book, Sherlock Holmes is called in to investigate famous mysteries, and helps the authorities behind-the-scenes. Naturally, Holmes doesn’t take any of the credit.

The Resurrection of Sherlock Holmes

Donald Thomas’ book The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes is a rare treat, hitting upon a brilliant idea for a Sherlockian pastiche. As Dr. Watson explains in an introductory letter, Sherlock Holmes has died and his private papers have passed into the good doctor’s hands. These papers worry a good deal of important people, who would like to set fire to the documents on the spot. But after much bargaining, a compromise is reached: Dr. Watson is to have access to the papers and is allowed to chronicle some of Sherlock’s most secret cases. Afterwards, the stories (as well as Holmes’ papers) are to be suppressed for seventy years, to see the light of day only long after the principal players have all died.

And thus, Dr. Watson explains, this is the first time he dares to take up his pen and chronicle Sherlock Holmes’ most secret cases, completely uncensored and with no attempt to disguise the famous people involved in the mysteries. For instance, we learn that The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton was largely fictionalised in order to protect the identities of the persons involved – in reality, the notorious blackmailer was Charles Augustus Howell, who was found with his throat cut and a ten-shilling coin stuck in his mouth: the slanderer’s reward. Another of Holmes’ cases, mentioned in passing, involved a forgery case in which Holmes was of some service to Lestrade; Dr. Watson reveals that it was in fact the Bank of England forgeries of 1873, “when the Bidwell brothers came within a hair’s breadth of having the Bank’s funds at their mercy”.