The Mammoth Book of Sherlock Holmes Abroad

Clark (The Night of the Triffids) has done a superior job in selecting the 15 original pastiches for this anthology, all of which remove Holmes from his Baker Street haunts to exercise his deduction skills in less familiar terrain. The standout, Paul Finch’s “The Monster of Hell’s Gate,” sends Holmes and Watson to East Africa, where the legendary Nandi bear, a creature familiar to cryptozoologists, has been decimating native workers on a new rail line. Finch blends suspense, atmosphere, and fair-play cluing so skillfully that many would welcome a longer Holmes story from his imagination. The always-reliable Denis O. Smith takes the duo to Russia in “The Adventure of the Colonel’s Daughter,” to clear a man caught literally red-handed at the scene of a murder. Clark’s own “The Climbing Man” confronts Holmes with an impossible crime in Mesopotamia. The consistent excellence makes this a better choice for Sherlockians than such similar volumes as Sherlock Holmes in America and Sherlock Holmes: The American Years. (July)