I found this book confusing. I understand the subject matter is complex, but the topic was complicated by a rambling style, lack of specific examples and too many quotes from the tax code. I admit I made it through only two chapters -- then I decided I needed to look for another book to help prepare for an overseas assignment. The book needs tighter editing to eliminate repetition, a Frequently Asked Questions section and realitic scenarios.

This is the 3rd collection of early detective stories edited by Greene. I have to admit that most stories are very badly written. But of course, it is not the fault of the editor, but of the incompetent authors.

Even though no one will probably read this, I feel I have to warn Holmes fans if they find this book and want to read it. I'll put it bluntly, it was very boring. I had to force myself to finish it, mostly because it was due back at the library soon. I have no idea what the author was trying to do writing this book, since it obvisously didn't get much attention. The book is not really a biography, he (Holmes) does not start out saying where he was born, in fact he never goes there but sort of skips to his childhood in the middle of the story to explain why he never talked about his childhood with Watson. Which isn't reason enough to read this book. Some things that annoyed me was the fact that the author tells us that "the woman" was actually a famous (or is that infamous?) prostitute; Holmes had never gotten married because the type of women he liked were of "a certain occupation." Holmes? Never! All in all a very bad, boring, and not worthy of Sir Author Conan Doyle.

I went ahead and invested in this follow-up to last year's "Murder in Baker Street", hoping that the stories would be better. Well, they weren't. The tales are just flat and unexciting. What happened to the good stories some of these authors used to contribute to previous anthologies? Out of this batch, maybe two are worth reading. Other than that, I would recommend saving $$ and renting it from the library.

At various points in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes berates Watson for the written versions of his adventures, feeling that Watson has produced sensationalised accounts of what could have been examinations of the deductive process.

Possibly Holmes would have been happier with the twelve stories in this slender volume.

While the deductions and so forth are fine and well, they generally lack the most important elements of the Holmes stories: human interest and conflict. It is easy to sit back and observe these stories dispassionately, because they lack any passion.

The closest Mr. Hammer comes to providing a true continuataion of Doyle's writing is in the last, best and longest of the stories, "The Matter of the Furnival Curse". It is in this story that the characters come closest to achieving some semblence of humanity.

The book is very well presented, but good packaging doesn't make up for a lack of substantial content.

I guess the jacket of the book convinced me to read it, but I wasted my day reading it. Sand Castle was horrible, so NEVER Read it! Unless you are into the chessey books, opps! I spoiled the ending!

As a general rule, I quite enjoy the Sherlock Holmes pastiches that Val Andrews writes. But not this one.

My impression is that the idea for a short story occurred, but it was padded out to make is a short novel instead. Worse still, there is very little in the way of deduction in this story.

The title itself is a little misleading, and the depiction of the regulars (including Inspector Lestrade) is done more as parodies than characters.

And then there is a jokey bit, where law officers refuse to believe that Holmes and Watson are themselves because they don't look like the Sidney Paget illustrations from the Strand magazine. The author found this so enjoyable that it gets used twice.

Not atrocious, but not what I'd expect from Val Andrews either.

This is the script for a radio play from the apparently prolific pen of Stanley S. Reyburn - I haven't seen, read or heard any others.

I found it rather unsatisfying. The plot is fairly thin (it relates to a train shipment of gold that has gone missing without any obvious places it could be hidden), and I didn't find the deductive abilities of Sherlock Holmes well-portrayed.

I also wasn't pleased by the depiction of Holmes, Watson, Mrs. Hudson and most especially Mycroft Holmes. Holmes himself seemed too supercilious and Watson, supposedly his perfect foil, seemed particularly dim. But Mycroft... Sherlock's brother is meant to be at least his equal in deductive abilities, but this Mycroft must have slipped out for a quick lobotomy before the performance.

Had the play been either a good demonstration of Holmes' deductive powers, or portrayed the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle characters in a truer form, it would have been fine by me. But to fail on both counts is a very sad thing.

It might be more enjoyable to hear in performance rather than simple reading, where the work of the actors might overcome my misgivings to one degree or another.

Kel Richards, a fellow Australian, has written a series of 3 books about Sherlock Holmes investigating supernatural (or seemingly supernatural) occurrences starting with this one.

In 'The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire', Holmes says: "This Agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. This world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply." His willingness to accept supernatural possibilities in this book is solidly against this view.

The story itself, even ignoring these non-Holmesian views, is fairly simple and has some ludicrous aspects that were not well appreciated by me.

I also didn't like he sudden Christian homily added at the end of the story. While I have no doubt that Holmes and Watson are Christians, their religion has never been in focus in the stories, and it seemed grafted on - presumably either reflecting the faith of the author, or because of some endeavour to counterbalance the supernatural elements for some imagined religious group who might object to the supernatural tone.

I get the impression that this book was written for a younger audience (although it is not stated so anywhere I can see), but even so I don't think it is a good introduction to Holmes for young readers.

Like 'The Curse of the Pharaohs', the first book in this series, this book suffers from a Holmes willing to believe in the supernatural, a fairly limited plot (although better this time than last), and a Christian homily at the end (which, again, is more in tune with the book than the last time).

Holmes is called in to investigate the sighting a the ghost of a headless monk on an island, one of a pair of islands, the other of which contains a lighthouse, its keeper and his family. While legends of the ghost have been heard for some time, the effect of sighting the ghost on the lighthouse keeper's wife is extreme. Once they are there, Homes and Watson discover that there are a number of other events which must be understood to correctly resolve the mystery.

This story is an attempt to tell the tale of the politician, the lighthouse and the trained cormorant, mentioned in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger'. It fails to do so successfully as Kel Richards fails to address the fact that, in that story, Watson threatens to reveal that story due to attempts made to destroy his case papers, and that at least one reader would understand. I can't explain why not without detailing the story completely, but suffice to say it does not.