However, you define great literature, one its hallmarks is re-readability. I recently re-read the first (1927) and the last (1958) of the Freddy the Pig books, a series about which I’ve written on this blog before. Those tales of the Bean Farm’s talking animals may not be literature as snobs define it, but they are wonderful. It was interesting to see how consistent the books are—and how much I still enjoy them. Rex Stout once said about a third of his reading was re-reading. I can’t say that, but I do enjoy re-reading favorite books. And yet, that can change. I still enjoy Stout’s Nero Wolfe ..read more

Fun and Affordable -- that the annual Holmes, Doyle, & Friends Conference in Dayton, which was held last Saturday, March 23. I'm still basking in the afterglow. The "Dayton Symposium," as it is often called, has been held under various names, in various places, and under various sponsorships since 1981, making it the granddaddy of all Sherlockian conferences that is still going strong. The Agra Treasurers of Dayton have been the sponsors since it became Holmes, Doyle, & Friends a decade ago.  Full disclosure: I'm the Programme Chairman, which means that I get to round up the ei ..read more

The Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles, by Elizabeth Crowns, is a mystery novel set during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Struggling young private detectives Babs Norman and Guy Brandt are trying to keep their business alive by unmasking the force behind the dognapping of Asta from the Thin Man movies and Basil Rathbone’s cocker spaniel, among other canines. Hijinks ensue, not the least of which is the embarrassment that follows “Sherlock Holmes” losing his dog. For good reason the book has been compared to Hollywood screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s. We put the author under the magnify ..read more

Encountering Christian Monggaard, a Danish Sherlockian, at Baker Street Irregulars Weekend in New York last month led me to renew my acquaintance with some old friends—the Three Investigators. Christian’s essay on “Sherlock Holmes and the Three Investigators” in the Autumn 2021 issue of the Baker Street Journal explores the connection between this children’s mystery series and Sherlock Holmes. Suffice it to say that those connections were significant over the 43-year run of the original series, from 1964 to 1987. I just happen to own the entire series, a gift of our daughter who picked them u ..read more

Publisher Steven Doyle with Winter issue; cover by Ann Brauer Andriacco  Whew! I’ve now completed a year as editor of the Baker Street Journal—four quarterly issues and the Christmas Annual. It continues to be an amazing honor to be the tenth editor in such a distinguished line from Edgar W. Smith to Steven Rothman. But what have I learned? The writers have been a dream to deal with, even the ones whose submissions I had to edit significantly or not use at all.    Comments from readers indicate they’ve noticed the variety of offerings in each issue, which has been on ..read more

In a fairly busy Sherlockian life, one of the things I'm happy to make time for is organizing speakers for the annual Holmes, Doyle, & Friends conference in Dayton, OH, each spring. This year's event, the ninth such under that name -- although the "Dayton Symposium" has a history of more than four decades -- takes place March 22-23. And once again we have a great lineup!  Speakers and their topics:   “Setting Up Camp: How I Build a Scene”—David Harnois, BSI (on how to put together a Holmes radio production) “We Love Sherlock, But Would Sherlock Love Us?”—Kira Settingsgaard ..read more

Last August on this blog I wrote about what I thought were seven essential books for every Sherlockian. Now Peter Eckrich and Rob Nunn have gone me ten better with Canonical Cornerstones, a book of essays about 17 books you should own -- like the 17 steps to 221B. The authors of these essays include some of the greatest living Sherlockians (plus me). None argues that any one book is the only book, just that it's an important one. They give you enough information to know which books you want to buy and in what order. But I warn you, they may also drive you to your bookshelves to revisit a fav ..read more

2024 is the 90th anniversary of the first Nero Wolfe novel, Fer-de-Lance, as well as that of the Baker Street Irregulars. In celebration, I re-read that inaugural adventure of the Corpus for the umpteenth time since my teenage years. (I was 14 when I wrote Rex Stout a fan letter.) To an amazing degree, it’s as if the whole W. 35thmise en scène sprang full-bodied from the head of Zeus (or Stout). Much of what we remember so well from the other novels and novellas is there in the beginning: Wolfe wiggling his finger, Wolfe pushing his lips in and out as he solves a case, the daily routine ..read more

I'm re-reading my way through Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy books with great enjoyment.  If you know these three books at all, you know that they take place in an alternate universe in which the Plantagenet kings rule over a globe-spanning Anglo-French empire and the laws of magic have been discovered. Lord Darcy is the chief investigator for the His Royal Highness, the Duke of Normandy, brother to King John IV. But in Too Many Magicians - a title reminiscent of three Nero Wolfe novels and one Wolfe novella - he assists his cousin the Marquis of London, who is nothing more or less than Wo ..read more

The amazing Kerstin Staudacher, who is like a daughter to Ann Brauer Andriacco and me, wrote a masters thesis on the Commissario De Luca crime novels of the Italian writer Carlo Lucarellis. These half-dozen books are set in Bologna in 1944. Kerstin writes in her abstract that the author “realizes a mixture of crime novel and historical novel in an outstandingly sensitive and detailed way. Since Kerstin’s latest degree was granted by Klagenfurt University in Austria—near the small down where she  lives—the thesis is, of course, written in German. My German being rather limited (although ..read more