Sherlock Holmes and the Air Fryer of Doom: The perfect funny secret Santa gift!

by Bruno Vincent

The greatest detective of all time has returned*!

Meet an older, wiser and slightly more irritable Sherlock Holmes in a hilarious series of brand new mysteries as he pits his famously considerable wits against assassins, master-thieves, website cookie settings and an air fryer of truly cosmic power . . .


*(again)

83 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 24, 2024

About the author

Bruno Vincent was a bookseller and book editor before he was an author. His humour books for grown-ups, co-authored with Jon Butler, were national bestsellers and have been translated into seven languages. The TUMBLEWATER books are his first for children.

Reviews

[Kristine Booksandstuff123 · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Sherlock Holmes and the Air Fryer of Doom' by Bruno Vincent.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ I really enjoy these little stories, I love the sketches throughout them aswell. These stories are great little whodunits aswell as being very funny. If you're a Sherlock fan then give these stories a read.
It’s Christmas at Baker Street, and Holmes is obsessed his most fiendish of unsolved cases: someone is murdering Santas across London!
As Holmes and Watson struggle through the Christmas-shopping crowds, they must catch this most dastardly and un-Christmassy of villains, while sneakily trying to purchase each other’s Christmas presents (they are in the world’s least-secret Secret Santa, after all).
Meanwhile, with the museums of London refusing to return cultural artefacts to their countries of origin, someone is taking matters into their own hands, and stealing back what was stolen.
Are the cases connected, and could an ancient air fryer of demonic power hold the key to the mystery of the murdered Santas? And more importantly, can you prepare a whole Christmas dinner in an air fryer*?
*Whether you can or not, Dr Watson’s going to give it a jolly good try. Ho Ho Holmes!
Thanks to NetGallery UK, the publishers and the author for letting me read a copy in return for an honest review.

[Matthew Fleming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not especially funny in its written style, but that's a good thing. As the Famous Five parodies increasingly showed, when Bruno Vincent tries to be funny he just throws in an anachronism and yells WOULDN'T IT BE FUNNY IF THE THING THAT HAPPENS NOW HAPPENED THEN? LOOK - JULIAN'S REFERENCING SNAPCHAT! LAUGH!!!

There's a bit of that here, but he wisely chooses to focus on plot and character, and as a result it's a not half-bad Holmes story that, confusing resolution aside, has decent mystery elements. Once or twice, it even sounds like Doyle. And I will give it this on the humour - those occasional picture pages with captions ARE hilarious.

[The Book Squirrel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my favourite of the three "New adventures of old Sherlock". It was well-plotted and even most of the illustrations (from original Sherlock stories, with new captions) were well-placed and relevant.
It has a Christmas flair, although I don't recall that the "Santa" serial death mystery was actually solved? (I have a head cold, so things are a little fuzzy).

[Rose Stanley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to get this (hardback not Kindle version; we die like men) purely for the title but it turns out to be a decently-plotted and paced short story (though may be too anachronistic for Holmes Purists). Definitely up for reading the other titles in this series.

[D L · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's Christmas and along with deciding what presents to buy each other, Sherlock and Watson investigate the murdered Santas as well as the missing artefacts from the London Museum.
Along with the other two books of this series, Bruno Vincent has written an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours with our two heroes.