Elementary - Sherlock Holmes Stars Mystery Booklist

Fiction (all genres) featuring or inspired by Sherlockian characters or Arthur Conan Doyle.

A list of books, many of which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist (BL), Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus, and Library Journal (LJ). Additional titles of interest may be included on this list. Titles are arranged alphabetically by author. Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

Holmes

  • Arthur and George
    Author: Barnes, Julian
    Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN: 030726310x Date: 2006
    starKirkus starLJ starPW starBooklist
    A masterful novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race, this tale is a profound and witty meditation on the fateful differences between what is believed, what is known, and what can be proven. Two men's lives become interwoven and each becomes the other's salvation.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 1.21.06
  • The Haunting of Torre Abbey
    Author: Bugge, Carole
    Publisher: Minotaur $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312245572 Date: 2000
    starKirkus
    Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson abandon their usual methods to find a murderer at Torre Abbey, a 12th-century monastery in Devon with a long history of hauntings.
  • A Slight Trick of the Mind
    Author: Cullin, Mitch
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385513283 Date: 2005
    starPW
    Cullin goes behind Sherlock Holmes's cool, unflappable surface to reveal for the first time the inner world of an obsessively private man. Cullin weaves together Holmes's hidden past and private struggles to transform him into an ordinary man, confronting and acquiescing to emotions he's resisted his entire life.
    Updated 2.14.05
  • The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-Time
    Author: Haddon, Mark
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385509456 Date: 2003
    starPWstarKirkus
    Narrated by a 15-year-old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts | Reading Group Stars
    Updated 4.8.03
  • Holmes on the Range
    Author: Hockensmith, Steve
    Publisher: Minotaur $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312347804 Date: 2006
    starLJ starPW starBooklist
    Somewhere due west of Deadwood, a pair of unlikely cowboy sleuths investigate murder just like their hero, Sherlock Holmes, who they come to know by scouring "Harper's Weekly" for the detective stories.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Cross Genres
    Updated 11.7.05
  • The Game
    Author: King, Laurie R.
    Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553801945 Date: 2004
    starBooklist starPW
    From the award-winning author of Justice Hall and Folly comes a new novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.
    Updated 1.26.04
  • Justice Hall
    Author: King, Laurie R.
    Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553111132 Date: 2002
    starPW
    The sixth episode in King's novels that celebrates and reinvents Mary Russell and her famous spouse Sherlock Holmes.
    Updated 2/18/02
  • The Moor: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
    Author: King, Laurie R.
    Publisher: St Martin's Price: $23.95 ISBN: 03121694345 Date: 1998
    starKirkus starBL
    When Mary Russell is summoned by her partner and husband Sherlock Holmes to the scene of his most celebrated case, that of the Hound of the Baskervilles, there is more to the matter than a phantom hound. Sightings of a spectral coach carrying a long-dead noblewoman over the moonlit moor have heralded a corpse surrounded by oversized paw prints. As Russell and Holmes anticipate, a rational explanation lies beneath the supernatural events--but one far darker than they ever imagined.
  • A Letter of Mary
    Author: King, Laurie R.
    Publisher: St Martin's List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0312146701 Date: 1997
    starPW
    From Edgar Award-winning author Laurie R. King, this national bestseller has met unprecedented acclaim from critics as diverse as The New York Times Book Review: " a lively adventure in the very best of intellectual company". The case of an amateur archaeologist whose discoveries in the Holy Land may have resulted in her murder, this novel finds the inimitable duo of Russell and Holmes in superlative form.
  • A Monstrous Regiment of Women
    Author: King, Laurie R.
    Publisher: St Martins $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312135653 Date: 1995
    starPW
    This eagerly awaited sequel to The Beekeeper's Apprentice finds Mary Russell, Sherlock Holmes' young apprentice, is about to come into a considerable inheritance, but she still enjoys nighttime prowls through London's grimy streets. There, she encounters an old friend, who introduces Mary to a temple led by an enigmatic woman. Suddenly, Mary's friend suffers a near-fatal accident, or so it seems. Russell and Holmes launch a quiet investigation--one that may bring the newly rich Russell closer to heaven than she would like.
    Updated 8.2.04
  • The Beekeeper's Apprentice: Or, on the Segregation of the QUeen
    Author: King, Laurie R.
    Publisher: St Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312104235 Date: 1994
    starBooklist
    The spellbinding Mary Russell series continues as Mary and her famous spouse Sherlock Holmes travel to one of Britain's stateliest homes to uncover a secret whose roots reach deep into the very soul of England.
    Updated 7.6.04
  • The Great Game: A Professor Moriarty Novel
    Author: Kurland, Michael
    Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 031220891x Date: 2001
    starPW
    A conspiracy of high-level assassinations threatens to destabilize all of Europe in 1891, and only Professor Moriarty stands in the way. Using his agents around the world, Moriarty must outwit his most cunning opponent ever while the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
    Updated 7/27/01
  • Baker Street Irregular
    Author: Llenberg, Jon
    $ 40 ISBN: 9781552469224 Date: 2010
    starPW
    BAKER STREET IRREGULAR is a mystery and espionage tale told by a member of a whimsical Sherlock Holmes club born in a speakeasy, as Woody Hazelbaker undergoes America's political struggles in the 1930s and Second World War in the '40s, stretching from the Great Depression's worst year to the beginning of the Cold War. - Publisher marketing
    Updated 9.27.10
  • The Sherlockian
    Author: Moore, Graham
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780446572590 Date: 2010
    starBooklist
    When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he's about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: Doyle's missing diary.
    Updated 9.27.10
  • Sherlock in Love
    Author: Naslund, Sena Jeter
    Publisher: David R. Godine $ 21.95 ISBN: 087929778 Date: 1993
    starKirkus
    In haunting prose, author Naslund conjures up wintry London and an enchanted Bavaria, where Watson and Holmes search for a missing Stradivarius, track Holmes one true love and navigate Europe while its future hangs in the balance.
    Updated 7.26.04
  • A Samba for Sherlock
    Author: Soares, Jo
    Publisher: Pantheon List Price: $23 ISBN: 0679400656 Date: 1997
    starBL
    Sherlock Holmes is summoned from London to Rio in 1886 to investigate the theft of a Stradivarius violin - a gift from the Emperor of Brazil to his favorite lady friend. A bestseller in Brazil, and published to wide acclaim in Europe, this brilliant literary thriller is now poised to capture the imagination of American readers.
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly: And Other New Adventures of the Great Detective
    Author: Thomas, Donald
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781605981345 Date: 2010
    starPW
    "Few authors have done as well in bringing these beloved and familiar characters to life. Donald Thomas masterfully evokes the flavor of Doyle's original stories of the great detective."--Publishers Weekly
    Updated 9.27.10

    • Doyle:

  • The Man from Beyond
    Author: Brownstein, Gabriel
    Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393051528 Date: 2005
    starBooklist
    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle arrives in New York on a spiritualist crusade, defending the powers of the mysterious medium Margery. His good friend Harry Houdini is a skeptic, and when Doyle claims Margery's powers are superior to Houdini's, the magician goes on the attack.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Magic & Magicians | Spiritualist Stars
    Updated 8.15.05
  • The Patient's Eyes
    Author: Pirie, David
    Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312290950 Date: 2002
    starBooklist starPW
    This compelling new Victorian mystery reveals the untold story behind the creation of the world's most celebrated detective: Sherlock Holmes.
    Updated 5/5/02
  • The Problem of the Missing Miss
    Author: Rogow, Roberta
    Publisher: St. Martin's List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312185537 Date: 1998
    starPW starKirkus
    When the daughter of a lord is kidnapped, the unlikely pair of Charles (aka Lewis Carroll) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle join forces to save her. This first novel by a children's librarian makes wonderful use of the two 19th century British authors and gives us a good story enhanced by the quirky characters of the two famous literary men.
    Suggested Reading: Sherlockian Stars | Debuts | Author Author
  • Escapade
    Author: Satterthwait, Walter
    Publisher: St Martins $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312130686 Date: 1995
    starKirkus
    It's the summer of 1921. At a weekend party in an English country manor, the discovery of a dead body in a locked room pits the minds of a brilliant escape artist and a famous detective novelist against that of a fiendishly clever murderer. Will an American private eye beat two 20th century heroes to the punch and find the killer--before he finds them?
    Updated 7.26.04

And...

  • Irene Adler series by Carole Nelson Douglas: Goodnight, Mr Holmes is the first book.
  • The reminiscences of John H. Watson by Nicholas Meyers: The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The West End Horror and The Canary Trainer.

For All Ages

  • The Final Solution: A Story of Detection
    Author: Chabon, Michael
    Date: 2004
    A mute boy escapes Nazi Germany with an African grey parrot and wanders into the live of an 89-year-old man rumored to be a once-famous detective. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of numbers the bird spews out, and is the answer beyond the reach of the famed sleuth?
    Updated 10.18.10
  • The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery
    Author: Springer, Nancy
    Publisher: Philomel $ 10.99 ISBN: 0399243046 Date: 2006
    starBooklist starKirkus
    First in a series featuring Sherlock Holmes' much-younger sister Enola begins. When her mother disappears, Enola is determined to find her and sets out to the heart of London. There Enola becomes involved in the kidnapping of a young marquess.
    Ages: 9-12 Category: Fiction | Mystery | Action & Adventure