I’m delighted to announce that I’ve got a short story in this anthology. The book arrived during the first week of January and I’ve already had a dip into a couple of the stories which have proved thoroughly enjoyable. I’m a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and it’s fair to say that Maxim Jakubowski, the anthologist behind this collection, has picked writers capable of reproducing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s distinctive narrative style.
My own story in this collection, ‘The Case of the Cursed Angel Tears’ begins like this:
Sherlock Holmes asked me not to write about the Case of the Cursed Angel Tears. His detractors, and there had always been many, insisted this reluctance was because it was one of those rare cases that he filed under the heading of ‘unresolved.’ They argued his ego was too great to tolerate any written account that showed him to be fallible or suggested that his logical approach to a case could prove flawed. However, my own feelings were that Holmes had personal reasons for wanting to keep the details of this case off the public record. Consequently, I am writing this account for my own satisfaction and not as one of the narratives intended for publication in The Strand, which Holmes always insisted were sensationalised accounts of his investigations.
“This is a most remarkable series of events,” he told me one morning over breakfast. He was examining a lengthy letter that Mrs Hudson had placed on the tray. He idly pointed at the contents with his butter knife whilst finishing off a slice of crisp golden toast.
In an effort to emulate his deductive reasoning I had already glanced at the letter and seen it was handwritten in a small, neat print on a scallop-edged page that resembled watermarked vellum. Other than thinking the author was a fussy individual because of the preciseness of the writing, and exceedingly verbose because the letter looked to consist of four or five pages of closely scripted text, I was able to deduce nothing that I considered of value.
“Most remarkable,” Holmes mused thoughtfully.
“Is it a case?” I asked.
“Possibly,” he laughed. “Although, if Countess Pleasington is accurate in her supposition, it’s a case that will involve our exploring worlds we’ve never previously needed to examine.”
To find out more, order your own copy of The Book of Extraordinary New Sherlock Holmes Stories.
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