8.6 /10 1 Votes
Language English Media type Print (paperback) Originally published 1997 Page count 208 | 4.3/5 Goodreads Publication date 1997
26 February 2010 Pages 208 Genre Detective fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher Constable & Co. Ltd
Titan Books (reprint) ISBN 0-09-477090-5 (first paperback edition) Preceded by Sherlock Holmes & the Devil's Grail Followed by Sherlock Holmes and the Royal Flush: A Narrative Believed to be from the Pen of John H Watson, MD Similar Sherlock Holmes series books, Detective fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sherlock Holmes and the Man from Hell is a 1997 Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Barrie Roberts. A key character in the story, Lord Backwater, is first mentioned in the short story, "The Noble Bachelor,", also by Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle.
Contents
Plot
Philanthropist Lord Backwater is found dead on his property. The police surmise that Backwater came upon some poachers which led to his murder. Holmes discounts this solution and undertakes his own investigation which leads to a hidden history of Backwater's time spent in a prison settlement on Van Diemen's Land.
Reissue
Titan Books reprinted the book in 2010, as part of its Further Adventures series, which collects a number of noted Holmesian pastiches.
Reception
Reviews of Sherlock Holmes and the Man from Hell have been largely positive. Publishers Weekly claimed that Roberts' writing was a successful "melding the brilliant thinker and the man of action".
Roger Johnson writing for the Sherlock Holmes Society of London stated that Roberts "has done his homework thoroughly" and "writes in a very acceptable simulacrum of Watson’s style". When Titan Books reissued the book, Lenny Picker called it a "classic pastiche".