British author Gilbert improves on the plotting and the Watsonian narrative voice in his second pastiche collection (after 2007's The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes
). Each of the seven stories takes its inspiration from one of the tantalizing references in Doyle's Sherlock Holmes adventures to exploits Watson never got around to publishing, such as the disappearance of James Phillimore, who returned home for an umbrella and was never seen again. While the lead story, “Baron Maupertuis,” offers an anticlimactic ending to the sleuth's duel with Professor Moriarty, Gilbert hits his stride with the clever “Adventure of the Cutter Alicia
,” in which a man is incarcerated for insanity after claiming to have viewed the vessel sail into a patch of mist and vanish. While not pitch-perfect like the work of Donald Thomas or Denis Smith, this is a solid and respectable addition to the ranks of faithful emulations of the Doyle originals. (Jan.)
