Golden Years that Shine

I've always been intrigued by what happened to Holmes and Watson after the stage went dark - the years after "His Last Bow."

Like many writers before, Kim H. Krisco provides some answers in Sherlock Holmes - The Golden Years. That's not a title that immediately attracted me, but the book actually is golden.

It's a series of five interrelated short stories, most of them featuring a well-drawn new villain. Some of the familiar characters of the Canon show up as well. Krisco gives one of them a very touching death scene, followed later by what may be a supernatural reappearance.

Some historical characters stroll through these pages as well, including G.K. Chesterton and Arthur Conan Doyle.


Key to most of the stories is the eugenics movement, which was supported by some famous and still highly-respected individuals of the day in both Great Britain and the United States. The treats us to some thought-provoking dialogue on the subject.

Dialogue is one of the delights of the book, as when Holmes says: "If honor appears as a choice, then you have already lost it." And then there's this, which I like very much:

"You know what you want, but that is not the same as knowing, with any certainty, that your actions today will deliver what you want. Life is not a chess game in which there is a final end. The real world does not stop with check-mate. What is more, simply because something does not end well does not mean it is good and right."

This comment by Sherlock Holmes is part of a debate with his brother Mycroft. The larger question they are contesting is whether it is right to join forces with one evil in order to defeat another. Almost a hundred years after the setting of the book, that question remains very much alive in our complicated world.

Sherlock Holmes the Golden Years- Five New Post-retirement Adventures is available for pre order from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository .