The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

Rating:
Summary: Some merit, but not my cup of tea
Review: As one who truly loves the original, I found most of the stories in this far-fetched and far more dark. More dark and strange than most pastiches, even. It was like someone taking Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to a rave party or something -- it was 20th century writing with 19th century (okay early 20th century too) characters. I just didn't care for it.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best anthology
Review: I thought this book was going to be better than it was, especially after reading Marvin Kaye's other Holmes anthology, "The Resurrected Holmes". I was disappointed in the slim pickings in this volume. Only a few of the stories were actually good and worth reading. Some, like "A Ballad of the White Plague" and "Vittoria, the Circus Belle", are flat-out strange. It was quite a disappointment, especially for Holmes fans.

Rating:
Summary: Stories kept hidden for various reasons
Review: The third (and currently last) of editor Marvin Kaye's Sherlock Holmes collections (the previous two being 'The Game's Afoot' and 'The Resurrected Holmes'), this volume continues the good quality of the previous two.

In general, I found the majority of the fifteen stories in this book to be worth a read. The only real failure, in my view, was 'The Little Problem of the Grosvenor Street Furniture Van', but I readily accept that this is due to my personal tastes. The story is notionally written by Arthur Stanley Jefferson (better known by the name he acted under, Stan Laurel) and is a slapstick comedy story. I've never been a fan of slapstick, and even if I had some fondness for it I'd rather see it in its best medium, something visual.

Having said that, the other 14 stories were all fine with me. I'll take the opportunity to specifically mention 'The Affair of the Counterfeit Countess' by Craig Shaw Gardner, which proves that you can tell a successful Holmes story and still be funny, and 'The Secret Marriage of Sherlock Holmes' by Shariann Lewitt, which lives up to its title (!). Both these step outside what one might expect in a Sherlock Holmes story and pull it off well.