This book was poorly edited. I believe that it is technically correct (unlike other books in the testprep series), but there are so many errors. I did not think that it was proof read before publishing. It slowed my preparation in passing the 70-064, and I can not recommend it on he errors alone

I would recomend using other methods of preperation. This book was ok, it did contain most of the information you need to pass. There were a lot of mistakes, the authors obviously didn't proofread this book very well. This book will become a permanent fixture on my bookshelf that will do nothing but collect dust!

I just purchased this book, it seems pretty good so far. I have found some typos but otherwise it seems real good and easy to understand. A review book like this has been well awaited. Good job.

This was a fairly improbable book with a few spelling errors and many grammatical problems, like many of Val Andrew's books. The premise was unlikely - Irene Adler becomes involved with trying to ameliorate Sherlock Holmes' depression. After all this negativity, I must say that I enjoyed this book. I wouldn't buy it if you need high-quality editing, but it is, after all, a Sherlock Holmes book, and as such, a good sketch of Dr. Watson's and Sherlock Holmes' relationship.

Val Andrews, a magician and photographer who has turned to writing has written a number of Holmes pastiches. This is the first I've read, and while disappointed, I'll give his work another try. This story finds Holmes pulling out of a depression and becoming involved in a long dormant murder of a young woman at a seaside resort, by way of his old acquaintance Irene Adler. Andrews hits on all the Holmesian cliches (Holmes' disguises fooling Watson, the arrogant local policeman, etc.) but doesn't fool the reader as Doyle so cleverly did with the mystery elements. As someone skilled in slight of hand in real life, perhaps Andrews will grow more skilled at making us look at the wrong suspect more convincingly in his next works. A good editor might help this writer to perfect Watson's unique narrative voice which here sounds right only part of the time. A pleasant read for an uncritical Holmes fan.

Something a bit different from Val Andrews this time around: Holmes has had a nervous breakdown and is in a catatonic state. How to snap him out of it? Mycroft, Watson and a glamourous figure from Holmes' past join forces to re-awaken Holmes' interest in "mean streets" with unexpected results. Several Holmes pastiches (and an old play by William Gillette, which became the basis for the first Basil Rathbone Holmes film) have used the notion of planting fake clues to lead Holmes astray. Here, Andrews works not one, not two, but three twists on this concept, as the clues are supposed to bring Holmes back to himself, and... could it be they're not fake after all?

If you have liked previous Holmes books by Andrews, you'll enjoy this one too.

An elderly Dr. Watson is trying to reconstruct events from his late friend Sherlock Holmes's past. What follows is an absolutely insipid romance(and barely one at that). The object of Holmes' "desire" is one of the more ridiculous characters to be introduced into the world of Holmes pastiches. My God, this book was so confoundingly stupid, I am having trouble finding the words to write this review. If you desperately want to read bad Holmes fiction, read The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, it's horrid, but at least the author had some sense of literary style. If all you really want is a quick, cheap, Holmes with a woman fix, there is a whole world of fanfiction out there, and its all free, baby. But if you want to read about Holmes having a meaningful relationship with a female, have a go at _The Beekeeper's Apprentice_ by Laurie R. King and the novels that follow. And I resent some remarks made by one of the reviewers about the LRK books. You can't just group them with all the other romances out there!!! But this is neither the time nor the place to get into the subtleties of Sherlockian factions.

Rather than read this book, the prospective reader is advised to re-read The Seven Percent Solution by Nicholas Meyer. "Sherlock in Love" is perhaps the worst Holmsian pastiche that this reviewer has ever read. The author has no feeling for any of the historical periods about which she attempts to write. Unfortunately, the author has not been able to carry any sort of an authorial voice like that of either Conan Doyle or his, wonderful alter ego, Dr. John Watson. This is an extraordinary disappointment. A fine premise is lost in poor execution.

Initially, I was excited to read this book. Though not a Sherlock Holmes fan per se, I LOVED Ahab's Wife and am always on the lookout for books that take common "folklore" and look at it from another perspective (e.g. Wicked by Maguire). Anyway, though the beginning dragged, eventually I got into this book and was happy to read along to its conclusion. But at the end (which luckily came quickly - a fast read), I said to myself, "so what?". There were themes of feminism and magic and friendship that weren't well-developed. But I guess that is good - otherwise the book would have been longer and I might have just put it down.

Frankly I wonder why I even bother reading Sherlock Holmes pastiche's anymore. They are usually so dreadful.

Well, this attempt is pretty dreadful too. And dull. Very dull. And the plot is somewhat unbelievable. Did I mention tedious and dull?

This one didn't live up to expectations, but to be fair, expectations for a fan of Conan Doyle's series are fairly high, and the elusive nature of this case demands equally stunning writing. While this isn't bad, it's not good either; the "mystery" is thin, and rather than finishing up with a satisfactory bang of enlightenment, it crawls across the finish line, adding another full "chapter" after the "Epilogue" notice. The science-fiction elements had real promise, however much they borrowed from Dr. Moreau, but instead of expanding them, Vanneman tries to focus on poorly-constructed minor characters that seem thrown in for the sake of a larger cast. Watson's sexual exploits are equally pointless, and Holmes' romantic attatchment to the Widow Han seems a desperate attempt to recreate Irene Adler. Too many unanswered questions and shoddy plotting make this one to skip. Instead, try some of Nicholas Meyers' Holmes stories - The Seven Percent Solution and The West End Horror are most excellent.

"In the vault of Cox was an old tin box with Watson's name on the lid," Jay Finlay Christ poetically declared in 1946. "What wouldn't we pay for that box today and the secret notes there hid?"

Christ is referring to the unpublished collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures that Dr. Watson often cryptically alluded to in the published ones.

"The giant rat, the cardinal's hat, the Patersons (first name Grice), the cormorant's bill, the Hammerford will - we'd take them at any price," Christ continues. Indeed, Sherlockian fans have oft wished that Dr. Watson and his chronicler, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, had been more forthcoming with details about the adventures that Dr. Watson hinted at and teased his readers with.

In Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", Watson alludes to the story of giant rat of Sumatra as one for which the world is not yet prepared, and that might be the unpublished story that intrigues Sherlock's followers the most. It might be the most oft-referred to of the unpublished tales. In the Charlton Heston production (as both a play and a movie), "The Crucifer of Blood", Watson is, at the end, dissuaded from leaving Holmes when this case shows up at Sherlock's front door.

One way or another, rats have a way of showing up in Sherlock Holmes stories. Inspector Lestrade's appearance is often described in rat-like terms. In "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", Charles McCarthy's dying allusion to a rat holds the key to the riddle of his death. In Adrian Conan Doyle's story of the Deptford Horror, Professor Wilson trains his dangerous Cuban spiders on the rats in his cellar.

But there's no rat like a Sumatra rat, and as far as I know, Alan Vanneman's novel is the first effort of all post-Conan Doyle Holmes pastiche authors to tell the story of the giant rat of Sumatra. There may have been other efforts beforehand, but I am not familiar with them.

It's a tolerably decent effort, even if it borrows liberally from "The Island of Dr. Moreau". But this book is more noteworthy as a collage than as a novel. It is enlivened by interesting characters such as the exotic and alluring Singaporean Widow Han, as well as the physically imposing and authoritative Captain MacDougall, a pure-blooded African sea captain who was once slave cargo on a ship similar to the one that he now commands. And then, of course, there's Harat.

There are also some interesting depictions of 19th century Singapore, naturally including one in which Holmes and Watson come upon a snake crushing a rat in its coils. And while I usually disdain romantic scenes, I was bemused to see that Dr. Watson's experience of women (in "Sign of the Four", he says that it extends over many nations and three continents) is further augmented throughout this novel. There's a scene, in which a fruit called a "doorian" is used as an aphrodisiac, that will send many readers scrambling to their grocery stores - or to Singapore - to find one.

But a romantic affair between Sherlock Holmes and the Widow Han is wrong, wrong, wrong, even if Vanneman does not allow it to shake Holmes's masterful nature and devotion to reason - or maybe all the more wrong for that. The authentic Sherlock has a passion for justice and a willingness to risk all for a damsel in distress, but is incapable of the softer emotions. As Dr. Watson explains in "A Scandal in Bohemia", love or physical passion in Sherlock Holmes would be as intrusive as "grit in a sensitive instrument or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses".

There's also a fair share of adventure on the high seas and on dry land in which our heroes sustain some very close calls. Their physical skills are taxed to the utmost, and it's fortunate that the wound that Dr. Watson received in Afghanistan from a jezail bullet, that is a potentially disabling influence in the Conan Doyle stories, doesn't come into play in this novel and is not even alluded to.

But a Sherlock Holmes story is supposed to be an unwinding but taut skein of events with a dramatic resolution at the climax and an equally taut string of deductive reasoning at the denouement showing how the Great Man was able to arrive at The Solution in the service of justice and (usually) in the nick of time.

This novel is a confusing montage of fantasy and complicated international politics, in which the motives of both the villains and the authorities who dispatch Holmes and Watson to defeat the villains are still somewhat obscure at the end. It simply doesn't hang together as well as does a traditional Conan Doyle piece. Aw, rats!

If you are a true sherlockian, don't waste your money. These stories are for kids from 6-9. I really can't believe they were seriously written as they contain problems which any rationell thinking human being would solve without any problem.

I tried to get through this book, but ultimately gave up in frustration. I've read the Doyle canon, as well as many other pieces by various other authors. While no scholar, I certainly can separate the good from the bad, and this one is exceedingly bad. I have thought to write this review several times in the past, but was stopped because I did not want to disparage the author's obvious good intentions.

Unfortunately, his intentions exceed his abilities. These stories read like they came from another planet. The descriptions, the cadence of the language and the word choice honestly make one wonder whether or not the author ever read a Doyle story before. The stories are shallow, but a true fan can look past that if the if the atmosphere of 221b is really there. It simply does not exist in these stories, or at least the several I read before I shelved this book.

I warn the prospective buyer to expect little by way of genuine Holmesian anything in this book. My purpose in writing this review is to spare others not so much the couple of bucks this book will cost as much as the dissapointment it will produce.

The author may, with time, hone his Sherlockian skills, but in this attempt he completely misses the mark.

This "Baker Street Dozen" gives us 13 short tales (up to 8 pages each) which can be easily and quickly read. If you want a book that you can pick up, and get a quick fix of Sherlock Holmes, this is a good one indeed. Andrews manages to keep true to the characters, and gives us a few clever plots, but although some solutions are quite "elementary," the stories are enjoyable. One wonders if Andrews' fertile imigination will ever run out of ideas, as he has published so many of these titles, but I always keep coming back for more--they are worth it!

A total waste of my book money. This author doesn't catch the Holmes/Waton/Mycroft characters at all. A collector's item, maybe, just for the Holmes name on the book, but the storyline is weak and ho-hum. I don't recommend this book at all.

British journalist and magician Val Andrews has written too many Holmes pastiches for me to easily count, during the past decade and a half. Most have been published lately by British magic publisher Martin Breese, who says this particular novel is his favorite. It is told in a somewhat more leisurely manner, with more attention to period detail and style, than the usual Andrews offering.

Holmes and Watson are basically blackmailed into a dangerous expedition to a little-known Saharan kingdom, where they wind up being buried alive in the tomb of a recently dead king! Despite the carefully wrought motif of Victorian adventure throughout (H. Rider Haggard is explicitly referred to), Holmes is treated according to the Conan Doyle Canon pretty much, although at novel's end Mycroft is seen doing something utterly preposterous--- at least for Mycroft. The payoff regarding a "mysterious mineral" in the lost kingdom is also pretty thin stuff.

In general I enjoyed it, and if you like other novels by Andrews, you're certain to like this one. By the way, magician Andrews has Holmes use a couple of sideshow magic stunts in the course of the novel; watch for them.

Val Andrews , the author os several Holmesian pastiches for the Breese Books imprint ,is also a noted magician. I hope for the sake of her livelihood that she displays more dexterity at performing feats of legerdemain than she does when writing this tired and tiresome farrago of nonsense.
Holmes and Watson are summoned from retirement by Mycroft Holmes to investigate the leaking of British troop movements to the Germans during World War one.Things are in a parlous state with rumours abounding that the French are about to seek a separate treaty with the Kaiser leaving Britain isolated and at real risk of losing the war.
Holmes and Watson-disguised as musicians entertaining the troops -first do battle with German spies near Salisbury,the location of Southern Command,before tracking down the ringleader and venturing -disguised now as themselves--into occupied France to thwart the Germans at the front line.
The book is less a novel than two novellas strung loosely together and even with a relatively brief page count seems padded .Holmes finds time to discourse on the origins of Stonehenge,the future of aviation and the shape of wars to come,but never to advance the plot as distinct from pad out a thin story
It seems a tired book and , cardinal sin ,makes Holmes pompous and boring.The title is also a misnomer as the dynamic duo do not actually tread foreign soil until the sorry saga is almost over Dull!and that is cannot be forgiven in any book.
Stick with the admirable King,Meyer ,Hall and Boyer if you want good modern Sherlockiana

Guess what? German spies seem to know of Allied offensives before they get underway. Mycroft leans on Watson to importune Holmes away from his behives, and investigate. Soon Holmes and Watson are entertaining at an Army base near Stonehenge, with Holmes on violin and Watson on piano(!). Spies are quickly uncovered, and Holmes and Watson take their places, passing over to France, where eventually, flying over areas well behind the battlefronts (contrary to the title) Watson's sharp eyes and Holmes' powers of ratiocination soon reveal a dastardly scheme to win the war on behalf of the Kaiser!

Like many of Andrews' Holmesian pastiches, this is told in a leisurely fashion, with virtually no action. In fact there are quite a few signs Andrews is tiring of the whole pastiche business, including Holmes mocking himself not once but several times.

If you've read previous books from this author and publisher, you'll know pretty much what to expect.

Sherlock Holmes pastiches tend to fall into two categories: those that seek to simply tell another adventure, and those that try to turn our preconceptions of the Great Detective topsy turvy. The Adamantine Sherlock Holmes falls into the latter category.

Starting with Holmes' claim to have spent some of the "Great Hiatus" in Tibet, Hapi proposes a liaison between him and Irene Adler which produces a son named Redlock who sets out to become his father's antithesis. This decision is based of the many examples of paternalistic and Euro-centric bias in Doyle's writings, enumerated at great length, which infuriate Redlock and drive him to seek to undo his father's deeds.

Sprinkled liberally with Buddhist parallels found in the Holmesian Canon, this book seeks to show Holmes' journey to enlightenment from the Imperial mentality of his creator.

For me, while I can appreciate the obvious scholarship that went into its writing, it is a little overly preachy and contains too much of a "West is bad, East is good" mentality. I think Hapi would have been better to have concentrated in telling a story, rather than giving us a redemption of Sherlock Holmes which is drowned in copious footnotes.

A collection of four short stories of varying lengths which seem to reflect the author's desire for Holmes and Watson to investigate cases in the north of England, presumably not too far from the author's current and/or childhood home.

While readable, I found these stories not particularly enjoyable and I was easily distracted from them. I was annoyed by the names that are employed to conceal the "identities" of the people involved - the Rt. Hon. Treasure Fortune M.P. indeed! Krihc House near the village of Chirk. And why the strangely named Inspector Indigo Strap insists on calling Captain Rufus Carrick "Capting" is not plain to me.

Underlying this are four stories which, while not bad, are sub-Conan Doyle in their content. Not a book I could recommend.

I found this book to be utterly repulsive. As far from Conon Doyle as you can get. It's hard to imagine Stanley Hopkins, Wiggins, Watson and all those wellloved characters being homosexuals. Only someone with a perverted sexual preference would find any joy in this disgusting excuse for literature. All it's good for is toilet paper or lighting fires with.

True fans of Holmes and Watson - avoid this book. I couldn't even finish it. The central character is actually Oscar Wilde, and the story is actually an attempt to entrap Holmes and Watson in a modern-day agenda. I have no ill will toward that agenda, but it drives the plot and the author distorts the characters in unbelievable ways. To the author: If you're going to write a book to push your agenda, make it subtle and keep the action honest.

This book is one of the most amusing I have read in a while. Many clever Wilde quotations are worked into the dialogue. It honestly isn't much of a mystery novel, but it is great fun to read if you have the right sense of humour. If you are a fan of both Sherlock Holmes and Oscar Wilde, this may be the book for you.

Warning: Do not read this book if you "dislike" homosexuals or if you are looking for a straight (if you'll pardon my pun) mystery. You will not enjoy it.