The Game's Afoot

With Sherlock Holmes being all the rage at present, it seems rather fortuitous timing to release an anthology of Holmesian short stories; and that's exactly what Titan Books is doing. And what's more, I'm in it!

The Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of short stories by a variety of genre writers, including Guy Adams, Lou Anders, and a certain Mark A. Latham. The stories range from the traditional to the steampunk, the supernatural to the comedic - in short, there's something for everyone contained within these pages. Compiled by George Mann, seasoned steampunk writer and author of Sherlock: The Will of the Dead, there's lots to entertain the avid Sherlockian.

My own story is an attempt at blending the canonical text with elements of Conan Doyle's supernatural fiction. In 'Sherlock Holmes and the Popish Relic', Holmes and Watson take up a case that is ostensibly not of this Earth; but Holmes, of course, doesn't believe that for an instant. Set shortly after Holmes's return from the dead, and just a few short years after the Baskerville case, the case takes them to an isolated, tumbledown estate and the ruins of a Catholic abbey to investigate the disappearance of an elderly peer of the realm. It seems that John H. Watson is far more inclined to trust his first instincts, and wonder if the things that go bump in the night aren't entirely of flesh and blood...

The Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes is available to pre-order online now, and is available from all good book shops come February 28th.