The Unopened Casebook of Sherlock Homes: 6 Extraordinary Adventures

by John Taylor

John Taylor takes up Conan Doyle's pen to present a new collection of six Sherlock Holmes stories. With his remarkable powers of logic and deduction, Holmes once more sets forth from the comfort of his Baker Street lodgings and applies himself to the resolution of mysterious events.

Genres: Mystery, Audiobook, Short Stories, Fiction, Historical Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published February 4, 1994

About the author

John Taylor is a writer and former BBC radio producer. He now runs The Fiction Factory production company, an established supplier of programs to the BBC.

Reviews

[Paul Weiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

“ … six singularly fascinating mysteries … ”

“ … each of which confronts the mind with just that sort of question likely to tempt it into supernatural speculation.”

The foreword, ostensibly written by John H Watson, MD, (well, of course), offers the theme that runs through this anthology of six as yet unpublished exploits that showcase Sherlock Holmes’ peculiar genius. Perhaps these six good quality pastiches don’t quite come up to the level of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s efforts, but they’re enjoyable and certainly worth the time of any Holmes fan.

Paul Weiss

[Shiloah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to put down. Loved them all.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of stories written in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, originally written to accompany a radio series that I would still like to get my hands on.

The linking theme of the stories is the supernatural, with a strong hint of ghosts, ghouls, witches and curses, and it is down to Sherlock Holmes to bring the human villains to justice.

John Taylor does a far better job of writing like Conan Doyle than most. This is shown particularly in the opening of the stories in 221B Baker Street, where instead of settling for the parody that most authors accomplish, and in Dr. Watson's foreword.

Of the 6 stories, there are 3 I particularly like - The Wandering Corpse, The Paddington Witch and The Devil's Tunnel. I am less fond of the other three stories although the Phantom Organ's ending fits in well with stories in the actual canon. The mysteries are not as tightly wound as the originals, but have their own quirks and some nice stylistic touches, particularly the Wandering Corpse.

An enjoyable collection.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though John Taylor did a fine job of capturing the world of Sherlock Holmes, he fell a bit short in the intricacy and deviousness found in Conan Doyle's tales. I was able to successfully see the conclusion in 4 of the 6 stories long before the end of the tale. But, overall it still felt true to Holmes and Watson in the characterizations and situations in which they found themselves. Enjoyable read.

NOTE: The audio book version of this was recorded in the style of a radio drama. The sound engineer and/or director fell a bit short in that the voice levels were widely disparate in volume and the sound effects often drowned out the voices. That aspect was frustrating.

[Charla · Rating 4 out of 5]

We listened the the audio book version and really enjoyed it. The mysteries didn't quite live up to the original Sherlock stories. A few times the solutions was a little too obvious but they were all fun. The sound crew did a great job with the sound effects but not so great at equalizing the voices. It was like listening to an impromptu live recording of a stage show. We frequently had to hike the volume way up to understand what was being said, especially with the female characters, but when we did that the other characters were blasting our eardrums.

[Josephine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not enjoy these stories.

[Garrett Zecker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little collection of brand new short Holmes pieces that take the style and ingenuity of the originals and incorporate them into six new stories. These new pieces were also dramatized for radio on the BBC if I am not mistaken. I don’t have much to say about this in regards to much other than the execution being a great homage to Doyle and his storytelling. The stories definitely hit on the structure and many of the same crime-solving tropes that exist in the stories already, and I am impressed with Taylor’s execution of the pieces and melding of the original mood of the work. The amount of new Holmes stories that are coming out of the mystery circuit are a breath of fresh air for fans of Holmes (“approved by the estate” or not, they are all a wonderful fanfic sendup of our favorite characters) and really do a wonderful job in keeping the genre and characters fresh and inviting. Sure, it is a lot like a cover band playing your favorites - but introducing almost long-lost songs of The Beatles, Nirvana, and The Doors is almost impossible. This, at least for us literary few, is as close as one can get.

[Read1000books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cases of Sherlock Holmes which bordered on the supernatural. Since Holmes disclaimed belief in such things, perhaps these would not appeal to the strictest of Sherlockians.

[redatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not find these dramatized stories for radio 5 quite as good as the Bert Coules dramatizations for radio 4, but did still find them enjoyable.

[Steve Whitaker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weak pastiche.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love listening to anything and everything Sherlock Holmes, but they rarely are as good as the originals, IMHO.

[Les Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As none A C D Sherlock Holmes, I found these stories very good. It is rare for me to give 4* to a book of short stories, but every story I this one is worth it.