I’m probably late to the party but I really enjoyed the Holmes pastiche I read recently, H.B. Lyle’s The Irregular. Ok, so it’s not a Holmes story as such, though he does make a cameo apprearence. It focuses on a grown up Wiggins of the Baker Street Irregulars who is recruited by the fledgling MI5. As one reviewer says ‘it bridges the gap betwen Holmes and Bond’. But that’s not all it does.
The Irregular is set right at the cusp of a new age, the modern world familiar to us all, 1909. The slums and politics are still Victorian but new electric lights, early cars and changes in attitudes to women are all in their infancy. The author does a good job of showing this change without being too heavy handed. And while there were a couple of linguistic and historical issues they didn’t have me rushing to the dictionary or encyclopaedia to check them out.
The story rattles along like a hansom cab and, unlike many crime novels, provides you with the clues to solve it yourself.
In style it reminds me a lot of the Inspector Pekkala novels of Sam Eastland which I love. Definately one for the keep shelves along with a handful of others - yes, that does include Larry Townsend’s Sexual Adventures of Sherlock Holmes so sue me :-) and Dibden’s The Last Sherlock Holmes Story.