Sherlock Holmes: the Sign of the Four

3.5 ★s

Sherlock Holmes: The Australian Casebook is a beautifully-bound hardcover book of short stories with illustrations. It is a compilation of sixteen stories by seventeen different authors with full-page illustrations by three illustrators. It is edited by Christopher Sequiera (who also contributes a story). Each story is narrated by Dr John Watson and all but one examine cases that he and Sherlock Holmes investigated during their time in Australia in 1890.

This might be regarded as Arthur Conan Doyle fan fiction, but as each of these writers (a mix of established authors and new young talent) is a published (and often award-winning) author of their own crime novels, it really is more than that. Many of them capture Holmes and Watson very well, although sometimes they do slip slightly out of character: now and then Holmes is not quite as arrogant and cool as we might remember him from Conan Doyle's work.

The cases and locations are quite varied: most states and territories of Australia get a look in, and there are murders, kidnappings and abductions, theft, unnatural deaths, a closed room mystery, an apparent return from the dead, bushrangers, charlatans and revolutionaries. Often the stories are well constructed, but some are a bit rushed at the end, or a bit more "tell" than "show". The plots are frequently very clever, but occasionally feature so many twists and red herrings as to make for a convoluted result.

Of the sixteen stories, those by Kerry Greenwood and Lindy Cameron, L.J.M. Owen, Christopher Sequeira, Steve Cameron, Narelle M Harris, Lucy Sussex, and Doug Elliott are outstandingly good. Holmes and Watson ride camels, horses and donkeys, travel by buggy, ship, carriage and train, are threatened, praised, misled, attacked and insulted, and in one story, Holmes goes for a swim. Readers familiar with the work of the individual authors will be interested in their take on Holmes and Watson, while for Holmes fans, these extra doses of the famous detective make it a book to savour.

With thanks to Echo Publishing for this copy to read and review.