A selection of Sherlock Holmes short stories written by modern writers. A right mixture, as ever some were better than others. The stories were from different stages in Holmes' career, from stories before Watson's marriage, after his wife's death to after Holmes' "death", they also vary in tone, from the supernatural to an homage to the detective's superior intellect.

I'd recommend the following two stories, The Whitrow Inheritance and The Adventure of the Intermittent Jigsaw Puzzle, as they both seemed faithful to Conan Doyle''s original stories, a good blend of intrigue and human relationships.

I enjoyed reacquainting myself with my favourite detective, especially in the wake of the BBC's excellent reboot, with some stories entertaining me more than others. ( )

I'm several stories into this collection, and I'm rather impressed. As David Stuart Davies alludes to in his slightly catty introduction, lots of collections of Holmesian pastiche have our hero hanging out with Dracula, Cthulhu, Jack the Ripper, James Bond and so on. The stories in this collection are earnest attempts to create stories which could pass for canonical.

Of course, they don't succeed, which I think is part of the fun. Every story that nearly gets it right illuminates some small detail of Conan Doyle's original stories. For example, some of these stories have paragraphs of semi-poetic description, which made me realise how rarely Conan Doyle indulged himself.

Most notably, though, there is the character of Holmes himself. In one story, he's almost a flirt, his eyebrows waggling around "sardonically " at every opportunity; giggling; and delivering camp one-liners. In another, he's gloomy, impassive, gives nothing away. ACD's Holmes, of course, is somewhere inbetween, depending on his mood or situation.

Finally, there are the stories which just slightly miss the mark in depicting the relationship between Holmes and Watson: Holmes compliments Watson once in a blue moon, not twice in 24 hours. The fondness they have for each other is a subtext and needn't be too overtly expressed, or too frequently.

All in all, these stories are carefully crafted, and come closer to ACD than many in the famous Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (another great collection).

Recommended.