Sherlock Holmes and Hitler's Messenger of Death (2017)

Holmes is pulled from retirement to face off with the greatest of all evils -- Hitler! From the cover art, it appears this book also involves the famous explosion of the Hindenburg.

Spring 1937. While German Chancellor Adolf Hitler ceaselessly talks of peace, his actions seem deliberately calculated to make the Western allies lose patience. The schizophrenic geopolitical atmosphere even can be felt as far away as Fulworth, England, the home of the retired Sherlock Holmes, where the Steiners, a German migrant couple, have recently found a refuge and have assumed care of the detective's household after the passing of Mrs Hudson. 

Spying and detective work are far from the thoughts of beekeeping enthusiast Holmes, but the suicide of his protégé – a local youth whose natural talent the detective developed and encouraged for ten years – is a heavy blow. The death without apparent motive has now pulled Holmes back into the world, which has changed dramatically. Steam power has given way to electricity, carriages have been replaced by automobiles, and the skies are dotted with giant airships. The only thing that has remained constant is evil, in the shape of an enemy with whom Holmes first tangled more than forty years ago…

Title: Sherlock Holmes and Hitler's Messenger of Death
Author: Peter Macek
Year: 2017
Publisher: MX Books
Purchase: Amazon.

The Secret Journal of Dr. Watson (2012)

Holmes and Watson head to revolutionary Russia in this 2012 novel approved by the Conan Doyle Estate. [Also see: The Case of the Revolutionist's Daughter.]

In their most secret and dangerous adventure yet, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are sent to war-torn Bolshevik Russia to rescue the deposed Romanov Family before they can be executed.

Increasingly unsure of who is friends and who is foe, Holmes and Watson must outwit the Bolshevik secret police, the counter-revolutionary forces and even their own government.

As events unfold, Holmes and Watson become entangled with former opponents, the King and even Lenin, as they attempt to complete their mission and save their own lives. 

Title: The Secret Journal of Dr. Watson
Author: Phil Growick
Year: 2012
Publisher: MX Publishing
Purchase: Amazon.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Raleigh Legacy (1986)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson uncover a history mystery involving Sir Walter Raleigh in this first Holmes pastiche by L.B. Greenwood. This is the hardcover released in 1986. A paperback was released a year later.

This mystery, the Canadian author's first, won approval from the Conan Doyle estate. But the sure-fire plotclearly based on Greenwood's knowledge of English history sinks under the tale's flimsy construction and fancy-Dan writing. As told by Dr. Watson, the story concerns a cryptic Elizabethan note belonging to the doctor's friend Aleck Raleigh. The centuries-old relic hints at a "grate Tresur" cached at Nightsead, onetime home of the quintessential swashbuckler Sir Walter, Aleck's ancestor. 

Watson excites the interest of the great Sherlock Holmes in the legacy, and Holmes tackles the puzzle and also investigates young Raleigh's stepfather and the lad's wife. The detective suspects either or both might kill for the secret he digs out (at last) from Nightsead's huge stone ruins. The find is fantastic, meriting the hyperbole wasted elsewhere on innumerable mundane moments in the tale, yet Greenwood treats the shocker rather casually.

- Publishers Weekly 

Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Raleigh Legacy
Author: L.B. Greenwood
Year: 1986
Publisher: Atheneum
Purchase: Amazon

The Ghost of Sherlock Holmes (1984)

This irresistibly titled collection of supernatural short stories contains one (the title story) about two bibliophiles who encounter a familiar apparition while on an excursion in Sussex. The author, Leslie Halliwell, is most renown for his Halliwell's Film Guide.

HOW CAN THERE BE A GHOST 

OF A MAN WHO DIDN'T REALLY EXSIST? 

Did the dead industrialist really come back to look for his wife? Can you make love to a ghost? 

Californian poltergeists, Icelandic apparitions and tales of Monagasque menace: Leslie Halliwell may be influenced by master such as E.F. Benson, Saki and above all M.R. James but with this original and chilling volume, he has established his claim as a master of the field of ghost stories in his own right. 

In The Ghost of Sherlock Holmes you will encounter spirits wistful, benevolent – and evil . . .

Title: The Ghost of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Leslie Halliwell
Year: 1984
Publisher: Granada
Purchase: Amazon.

The Italian Secretary (2005)

A Sherlock Holmes novel by acclaimed author Caleb Carr sanctioned by the Conan Doyle estate.

In honourable homage to Conan Doyle, Caleb Carr escorts Holmes and Watson through what transpires to be one of their most sensational adventures – one of their 'largely secret sub-collection' of cases, swathed in discretion and bound by decorum. Rightly so, given the delicate nature of the investigation: murder in a royal palace, an affront to the majesty of Queen Victoria, and a tantalising take on another, ancient murder. One witnessed by the willful Mary Queen of Scots...

In this landmark event of crime fiction, Caleb Carr echoes – exquisitely – the master of whodunnit. And in capturing the conversational rhythms of detection's most famous exponents, he recreates, by way of stunningly original story, the glory of Holmes and Watson, ensuring their continued resonance throughout the annals of crime.

Title: The Italian Secretary
Author: Caleb Carr
Year: 2005
Publisher: Carroll & Graf
Purchase: Amazon.

A Study in Terror (1967)

Continuing our look at the novelization of the 1966 Sherlock Holmes film A Study in Terror, here is a 1967 Lancer paperback that curiously makes no mention of the movie nor even Sherlock Holmes on the cover! This one is packaged solely as an Ellery Queen adventure. Very different from Lancer's 1966 edition.

Ellery Queen and Sherlock Holmes-Undisputed masters of analytical deduction - their talents and methods strikingly, almost uncannily, alike. Through the strange interlocking of events past and present, two celebrated detectives meet to focus their razor-sharp intellects, their brilliant powers of observation on the mystery of... Jack the Ripper. History's most depraved murderer, his victims were the whores of Whitechapel. Lurking in narrow, fog-shrouded alleys, he crept forth night after night to murder and mutilate. Eluding Scotland Yard's most heroic efforts to track him down, the Ripper continued to satisfy his unnatural appetites, unrestrained and unidentified.

Title: A Study on Terror
Author: Ellery Queen
Year: 1967
Publisher: Lancer
Purchase: Amazon.