Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 2. Whole No. 834, February 2011

The Jury Box by Jon L. Breen

Though Sherlock Holmes never figured in an overtly science fictional adventure, many sf writers have contributed to the extra-canonical literature, among them Philip Jose Farmer, Isaac Asimov, Mike Resnick, and Poul Anderson. Each of the first four volumes of Anderson’s collected short works (NESFA, $29 each) has a single detective story with Holmesian associations: “The Martian Crown Jewels” in Call Me Joe (volume 1), the title story in The Queen of Air and Darkness (volume 2), plus two less widely known stories. In the current volume 3, The Saturn Game, is “Eve Times 4,” a comic space opera featuring several humans, a couple of colorful aliens, and a fair-play mystery some readers may solve; and the forthcoming volume 4, Admiralty, includes “The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound,” not quite as good a detective story but even more broadly comic and Sherlockian in its references.

Though Holmes is mentioned only in passing in Dana Martin Batory’s Dreams of Future Past: The Science Fiction Worlds of Arthur Conan Doyle & H. G. Wells (Wessex Press, $13.95), over half of this collection of previously published essays concerns the work of Dr. Watson’s agent, including the strong influence of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on his writing and a rather shocking account of the sexualimagery in the Professor Challenger story “When the World Screamed.” From the same publisher is Sherlockian Heresies ($19.95), a collection of delightfully contrarian essays by the late French journalist Léo Sauvage, who will be remembered for The Oswald Affair (1966), one of first books critical of the Warren Commission’s report on the JFK assassination.While a book titled Sherlock Holmes for Dummies (Wiley, $19.99) seems of dubious necessity, the volume by Steven Doyle and David A. Crowder provides a thorough, readable, and authoritative summary of all things Sherlockian. The principal author is co-founder of Wessex Press.The outstanding item in our annual birthday round-up is the latest novel about eminent fans of the Baker Street sleuth. Though it follows fictionalizations as excellent as Anthony Boucher’s The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars (1940) and Arthur H. Lewis’s Copper Beeches (1971), this quite different novel by Jon Lellenberg may be the best of them all.

**** Jon Lellenberg: Baker Street Irregular, Arkham House/Mycroft & Moran, $39.95. In an espionage saga extending from 1933 to the early years of the Cold War, New York lawyer Woody Hazelbaker helps settle the affairs of mobster Owney Madden, joins the BSI, and participates in intelligence activities before, during, and after World War II. Clearly based extensively on fact (and a whole second volume is projected to document and clarify), this extraordinary historical novel is recommended to anyone interested in the run-up to World War II in the United States and the role of code-breaking in the defeat of Germany and Japan. Excellent talk in place of physical action gives a much more authentic feel than the cinematic choreography of lesser novels. Historical characters abound, from FDR and Churchill to the founding Irregulars, many of whom (notably radio commentator Elmer Davis) had an important role in the war effort. Also appearing is prolific British thriller writer Dennis Wheatley, who would have appreciated how Lellenberg draws several plot strands together for a startling ending.

*** Ann Margaret Lewis: Murder in the Vatican: The Church Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, Gasogene, $18.95. Three of the unrecorded cases — the death of Cardinal Tosca, the Vatican cameos, and the two Coptic Patriarchs — are recounted with much Roman Catholic background. One is narrated by Pope Leo XIII himself, and two include appearances by G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown. The use of Holmes and Watson in overtly religious fiction may raise eyebrows — after all, Doyle never depicted Holmes as a convert to Spiritualism — but the stories are engagingly written. The plots have some clever elements, though short on clues.

*** Tracy Barrett: The Case That Time Forgot, Holt, $15.99. In this series for ages 8 to 11, teenager Xena Holmes and her brilliant ten-year-old brother Xander, American kids transplanted to London, endeavor to solve cases that defeated their great-great-great-grandfather Sherlock. From an unpromising beginning, their third adventure, involving a stolen Egyptian amulet said to have magical powers, gathers considerable steam, with a fair-play mystery that will both enthrall and educate young mystery lovers.

*** Victoria Thompson: Murder on Lexington Avenue, Berkley, $24.95. New York Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy and midwife Sarah Brandt investigate the murder of a wealthy businessman with a deaf daughter and a strong opinion on the still-controversial topic of deaf communication methods. The police procedure, though casual by present-day standards, seems right for around 1900, and the grasp of period attitudes and realities is impressive. Clues are fairly provided, and the main villain is one of the most unusual in recent memory.

*** Cynthia Riggs: Touch-Me-Not, Minotaur, $24.99. The ninth case for 92-year-old Victoria Trumbull, police deputy in a small Massachusetts town, involves stalking, electronic voyeurism, quilting, and a case of manslaughter that a local electrician goes through sometimes darkly comic machinations to cover up. The novel combines inverted detection and whodunit, with involving characters and a well-realized Martha’s Vineyard background.

*** Hailey Lind: Arsenic and Old Paint, Perseverance, $14.95. San Francisco art restorer and reformed forger Annie Kincaid, with a nose for mystery and an increasingly complicated love life, is one of the funniest and most likable first-person sleuths in the current market. Her fourth case begins with the discovery of a bleeding corpse in a bathtub at an exclusive San Francisco club, the scene recalling David’s painting Death of Marat. This series deserves to continue.

*** Sasscer Hill: Full Mortality, Wildside, $13.95. Jockey Nikki Latrelle, compelled to visit her upcoming stakes mount Gilded Cage late one night at Laurel Park, finds the mare dead in her stall. Other equine and human deaths follow. First-time novelist Hill, herself a Maryland horse breeder, is a genuine find, writing smooth and vivid descriptive prose about racetrack characters and backstretch ambience that reek authenticity. Familiar plot elements are gracefully handled, including that old romantic-suspense conundrum: which of the attractive but mysterious males is the good guy and which the villain?

*** Al Roker and Dick Lochte: The Midnight Show Murders, Delacorte, $26. The second case for chef and TV personality Billy Blessing may be the first mystery signed by a celebrity collaborating with a pro that concerns in part a celebrity collaborating with a pro. Other inside jokes from the mystery and show-biz worlds abound, as Blessing reluctantly leaves his New York base for Los Angeles where he is all-too-close a witness to spectacular murder on live TV. A fairly clued puzzle adds to the fun of one of the best celebrity mystery series.

*** Randy Singer: Fatal Convictions, Tyndale, $13.99. In Virginia Beach, Alex Madison, pastor of a small church and in his day job an almost literally ambulance-chasing personal-injury lawyer, defends a Norfolk imam accused of the honor killing of a married Muslim woman and her Christian lover. The plot is satisfactorily complicated with a string of well-sprung surprises, the courtroom action authentic and plentiful, and the dramatic wind-up expertly managed. The author himself is an attorney and pastor.

Copyright ©2010 by Jon L. Breen