“The Game Is Afoot” Once More*

With this supposedly being the birthday of Sherlock Holmes (his 156th?), it seems an opportune time to mention Titan Books’ plans to republish a number of somewhat overlooked yarns in a series entitled “The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.”

Out already are four entries in that series: The Ectoplasmic Man, by Daniel Stashower (originally published in 1985 and pairing Holmes with illusionist Harry Houdini in a case that involves blackmail against the Prince of Wales); The Veiled Detective, by David Stuart Davis (dating from 2004, and recounting Holmes’ first encounter with criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty); The War of the Worlds, by science-fiction and horror writer Manly Wade Wellman and his son Wade (a 1975 release in which Holmes, Dr. John H. Watson, and Professor Challenger combat H.G. Wells’ aliens); and The Scroll of the Dead (first published in 1998 and pitting Holmes against a counterfeit medium “hell-bent on obtaining immortality after the discovery of an ancient Egyptian papyrus”).

Still to come in this handsomely packaged paperback series are The Man from Hell, by Barrie Roberts (1997), and The Stalwart Companions, by H. Paul Jeffers (1981), both due out in February. Tom Green, Titan’s online marketing executive, tells me that future installments will include “an encounter with Dracula. I believe there will be 10 titles all together.”

Of the works already identified, the only one I remember reading is Stashower’s The Ecotoplasmic Man, which I’d considered including in The Rap Sheet’s “forgotten books” series (though that no longer seems appropriate). If Green’s mention of a story that finds the Greatest Detective stalking Count Dracula refers to Loren D. Estleman’s Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula, or The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count (1978), then I’ve read another. But, despite Bookgasm editor Rod Lott’s caution that there are errors to overcome in these reprints, I hope to find time to read all of the Titan editions. As any serious mystery-fiction fan can tell you, there were plenty of Holmes pastiches from which to choose in putting together this series. David Stuart Davies alone has penned at least eight Holmes novels, together with multiple non-fiction studies of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated protagonist and his faithful chronicler. I’d hate to have been the person responsible for culling out only 10 titles worth bringing back to the marketplace.

That these books are, I presume, appearing now only because of the publicity surrounding the new Robert Downey Jr. film, Sherlock Holmes, doesn’t bother me one iota. Good novels deserve to be kept in the public eye, even if it’s blatant commercialization that guarantees their longevity.

* While this headline refers to a memorable Sherlock Holmes line delivered in Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange,” the phrase in fact has a more complex and interesting etymology.

READ MORE: “Sherlock Holmes, Amorphous Sleuth for Any Era,” by Charles McGrath (The New York Times); “The End of a Beautiful Friendship: Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle,” by Jill Harness (Neatorama); “The Curious Incident of the Sleuth in the Meantime,” by Karl E. Meyer (The New York Times); “From Well Beyond the Grave,” by J. Kingston Pierce (The Rap Sheet); “Book Review Club: The Trial of Sherlock Holmes, by Leah Moore and John Mark Reppion,” by Scott D. Parker.