Sherlock Holmes: After the East Wind Blows Part I: The East Wind Blows 1914-1918

After the East Wind Blows: WWI and Roaring Twenties Adventures of Sherlock Holmes #1

by David Marcum, John Linwood Grant, Kevin Thornton

"There's an east wind coming, Watson."
"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared."

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson
August 2nd, 1914
"His Last Bow"

On August 4th, 1914, England declared war against Germany, after the latter's invasion of Belgium earlier that day. Just days before that, Germany had declared war on Russia and France and Luxembourg. Soon much of the world was dragged in. Europe was a tinderbox, and the fuse was lit. To anyone living in those times, it must have seemed that the world had suddenly gone mad. But in fact, the events leading to The Great War and the deaths of millions had been in the making for decades, as the European nations scrambled to outdo one another around the world in terms of escalating military might and colonial expansion, while strangling themselves with convoluted treaties and intermarried royal families.

Although a dozen other Canonical Holmes adventures would be published after "His Last Bow", that story, covering just a few minutes on the evening of August 2nd, 1914 - "the most terrible August in the history of the world" - was chronologically the last Canonical adventure, . But even though that narrative - included in this collection - relates what Holmes and Watson were doing at the very beginning of the War, there is much more to tell . . . .

Contained in this collection are 36 Canonical adventures in three companion volumes by many of today's best Sherlockian pasticheurs, relating some of Holmes and Watson's wartime adventures, and then telling us what happened afterwards during those years immediately following the Armistice, and on through the 1920's.

Join Holmes and Watson as the thunderous Guns of War begin to fire, through the nightmarish years that followed, and then through the other side when the storm has cleared . . . .

The game is afoot!

Part I: The East Wind Blows (1914-1918)
The Rescue at Ypres - David Marcum
The Silent Sepoy - John Linwood Grant
The Odd Telegram - Kevin P. Thornton
The Adventure of the Synchronised Pup - Wayne Anderson
The Conundrum of the Questionable Coins - Will Murray
The Intrigue of the Kaiser Helmet - Shane Simmons
The Adventure of the Floating Rifles - John Davis
The Adventure of the Singular Needle - Andrew Salmon
The Singular Case of Dr. Butler - Paula Hammond
The Adventure of the Incomplete Cable - Dan Rowley
The Case of the Despicable Client - John Lawrence
The Adventure of the Absconded Corpse - I.A. Watson
Checkmate - Robert Stapleton

348 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 12, 2021

Reviews

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following a detailed and informative editorial and 'Foreword', we have the Canonical 'His Last Bow' followed by thirteen pastiches. Several were tedious tales of espionage and retelling of history. A few managed to sparkle and touch with their pathos, wit and pace. They were~
1. 'The Silent Sepoy' by John Linwood Grant;
2. 'The Adventure of the Syncronised Pup' by Wayne Anderson;
3. 'The Intrigue of the Kaiser Helmet' by Shane Simmons;
4. 'The Singular Case of Dr. Butler' by Paula Hammond;
5. 'The Adventure of the Absconded Corpse' by I.A. Watson;
6. 'Checkmate' by Robert Stapleton.
These were stories that seemed worthy of repeat read.
Overall, a good collection.

[Christa Saccullo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good read

Not my favorite collection of Holmes pastiches, but I give it an extra star for drawing pictures of what it might've been like during WWI. The first and last stories were my favorites.

This is a collection from various and experienced Holmes authors. Most take place in the early years of the war before America got involved.

If you like Holmes and Watson primarily working in WWI, you'll like this collection.

Christa

[Christopher Lutz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun collection of tales set across the whole of the First World War. My favorite being a case unrelated to the war concerning a possible treasure of coins from Atlantis. There is a great forward that contextualizes Holmes’s adventures in this period with the original Doyle canon. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes never truly retired?

[Susan Molloy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a long work that is admirable as a pastiche to Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes works.

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