The Keys of Death: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure

How did Sherlock Holmes meet his long-suffering landlady, Mrs. Hudson? Altabef (These Scattered Houses) provides a clever answer in a pastiche that otherwise has little to recommend it. In 1880, after Martha Hudson’s beloved husband, James, is fatally shot in a moneylender’s “disreputable premises” in Baker Street, Scotland Yard dismisses the murder as just a falling-out among Jewish ruffians. At the morgue, the grief-stricken widow meets Holmes, who catches her just as she’s fainting and later ensures she returns home safely. Holmes soon becomes her tenant, along with Dr. Watson, and the pair endeavor to solve James’s murder. Too many supporting characters, including Arsène Lupin, Lily Langtry, the Prince of Wales, and a “West African gentleman of honour” who “learned the art of baritsu from a Cuban pirate,” weigh down the overly busy plot, which is interrupted by incidental sections on such subjects as gardening and the role of women in Reform synagogues at the time. Stilted prose doesn’t help (“Mrs. Hudson from her bedroom was a bivouacked general”). Even fans of alternate takes on Conan Doyle’s creations may be disappointed. (Dec.)