The Perils of Sherlock Holmes

While this decent collection is not, as billed, the first such by a single author since Conan Doyle’s The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927), Estleman (Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes) does a serviceable job in crafting eight new adventures for the Baker Street sleuth. Intriguing puzzles include “The Adventure of the Three Ghosts,” in which Holmes aids a man experiencing nightly visitations straight out of A Christmas Carol, and “The Devil and Sherlock Holmes,” in which an insane asylum inmate has convinced the medical staff that he is Satan himself. A lighter touch is winningly portrayed in the short play, “Dr. and Mrs. Watson at Home.” “The Serpent’s Egg,” the only entry previously unpublished, was intended as the first chapter of an abortive round-robin pastiche that was to have included Isaac Asimov and Ruth Rendell. Two essays on Holmes and Watson, revised for this edition, round out the volume. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (Oct.)