Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives vol. IV

Sherlock Holmes may be the world’s only consulting detective, and the most brilliant investigator of his time, but there are other detectives in the shadows, ones who are willing to look ‘beyond humanity’ for answers. Some share a degree of Holmes’s scepticism; others embrace the spectral and ab-natural with an enthusiasm and determination which can be positively alarming.

Belanger Books return to the world of the occult detectives, with a further two volumes of Sherlock Holmes tales concerning matters which do indeed appear to be inexplicable by any normal standards. The canonical Holmes and Watson are on the trail in twenty brand new cases of murder, mystery, and lies. And as you might expect, they find themselves – willingly or unwillingly –accompanied by stranger bedfellows than usual.

In these pages, a range of contemporary authors explore what happens when the Great Detective confronts mysteries which defy even a slipper of shag tobacco and the vibrant tones of the violin. A child’s body appears – and disappears – on the remote Dorset coast; a cardinal dies in mysterious circumstances in the Vatican, and a death at a country house offers a locked room mystery with no natural explanation. From Calcutta to Carshalton, from Suffolk to South Kensington, deceptions are practised, bodies are inexplicably mangled – and souls may well be in peril.

For Volumes Three and Four, Holmes finds himself at odds with Bram Stoker’s Harkers, exasperated by the hapless Gerald ‘Budleigh’ Salterton, and intrigued by a Mlle. Castaigne, who suggests that a terrible use has been made of the Lumière brothers’ photographic innovations. Was there really ever a play called ‘The King in Yellow’? He meets for the first time the gifted Mrs Hudgins, and once again encounters the talented Miss Trelawney, amongst others. Margaret Murray, the famous real-life anthropologist, has a puzzle for him on the Nile during the Great Hiatus, whilst in London, Holmes crosses the paths of more historical figures in the shape of spiritualist Tennessee Claflin and her sister Victoria Woodhull. And what is he to make of Vernon Lee’s Lady Tal, never mind Aleister Crowley’s Simon Iff?

Join us as Holmes works with psychic investigators old and new in pursuit of answers, and must confront his own scepticism. Tales in the traditional style – but with a twist. Can Holmes’s logic work alongside the occult detectives’ willingness to accept another set of rules entirely? Are their proposed solutions paranormal – or poppycock?