Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of Seven

Authors have been contributing to the canon of Sherlock Holmes for over a century, and you’d think at this point that they would’ve exhausted the limits of Holmes’ uncanny observation skills or the cunning criminal minds of London and beyond. But trust me, you’d be wrong. There’s still plenty of juice left in Holmes stories, particularly when you’ve enlisted a murderer’s row of crime fiction storytellers to add to the pantheon of Holmes’ cases.

The Sign of Seven is a collection of seven novella-like adventures, offering the authors more freedom than short stories would and allowing the reader to sample different flavors of Holmes in an economical fashion. The stories range from Holmes at his most clever to Holmes at his most socially conscious, as he and Dr. Watson confront crimes both innocuous and horrifying. We even conclude the collection with a tale from the point of view of Inspector Lestrade, the long-suffering policeman so often dismissed by the Great Detective.

Whether he’s exposing a fraud at a seance or unraveling the secrets behind a cult leader’s death, in the right hands, Holmes remains one of the most entertaining characters in the history of literature. Here’s hoping these smart writers find another Holmes collection to work on very soon.