A Preview of No Police Like Holmes

In case you missed it, Steve Emecz, managing director of my wonderful publisher, London-based MX Publishing, posted this recently on his blog:

Dan Andriacco’s first book in June this year has been a big hit with Holmes fans around the world and the blog of the same name, Baker Street Beat, has thousands of visitors. Dan refers to both as ‘various Sherlockian scribblings and ramblings’ and the book’s mix of pastiches, radio plays, articles and stories written in the style of a highly articulate fan, is the only book we have that only has 5 star reviews on Amazon, eleven of them at time of writing. What will be interesting is to see the reaction of his growing Holmesian fan base when they read this, his debut novel, and realise that the target of both the murderer, and Dan’s sharp wit, is Holmes fans themselves.

Set in a small town in America that is hosting a major Sherlockian event, Dan captures the essence of Holmes mania and weaves into a murder mystery an extremely funny look at Sherlockians. You will certainly recognise several of the characters and may even see a bit (or a lot) of yourself in one of them. The ‘hero’ of the story, Jeff Cody, is faced with several Sherlockians as murder suspects and competes with his brother-in-law Sebastian to solve the mystery.

Especially as it’s his first stab at a full length novel, Dan has had some help from leading Holmesians on going through the book, and the way he paints the obsessive Holmes fans has been described as “spot on”. As Dan says on the book’s back cover,

“This satirical romp takes Sherlock Holmes seriously, but not Holmesians”.

Lets not forget that this is as much a self-reflection as anything, and in fact you could argue the book is semi-autobiographical. So is No Police Like Holmes like looking in the mirror for Dr.Dan? The grinning photo of Andriacco adorned with deer stalker and magnifying glass on the back cover certainly suggests that.

We’re sure Holmes fans will react with the same passion as they have done to Baker Street Beat -

“If you don’t read any other Holmes pastiche this year, please, please read the short story The Peculiar Persecution of John Vincent Harden which has to be the closest in tone and content to a Holmes work that I have read in a long time.”

“Andriacco’s passion for the source material is readily apparent and is much to my great enjoyment matched by his ability to expertly convey itself in his scribblings. From radio to print Andriacco’s stories both at once pull the reader in to a familiar world and at the same time provide new adventures for us to experience. This most excellent collection has rightfully earned a center shelf location in my collection.”

“No Police Like Holmes” is in fact part of a quote from E. W. Hornung the author of the Raffles series, a fact spotted by an eagle-eyed Rachel Klingberg on the Sherlock Holmes Books Facebook group which now has members from over 30 countries around the world. The full quote being;

“Though he might be more humble, There’s no police like Holmes.”

The book comes out on November 9th and as always, Amazon UK is the first bookstore to have it – that’s what you get for being a London based publisher. The other bookstores will surely follow soon and US fans can get it direct from the publisher at MX Publishing USA. As always we’ll set aside about twenty pre-publication press copies for visitors to our site that will be sent out in October.

Dan will be appearing in person alongside many Holmes legends at "Gillette to Brett III" Nov. 11-13 in Indiana and will have some copies there to sign. Holmes fans that manage to get one of those signed first editions make sure you keep them safe, we have a feeling this one is going to be a bestseller.