Between the Thames and the Tiber: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Britain and the Italian Peninsula (Pegasus Crime)

After a thrilling jaunt in the far east, Holmes and Watson return to England to address an inheritance left by one of Watson's relatives in Cornwall, half of which he gave to his dear friend, Sherlock Holmes. Financially secure, the two are now free to spend as much time on Baker Street and the Continent as they please, and the duo find themselves as comfortable in Rome on the banks of the Tiber as the Thames. As Holmes rationalizes and ratiocinates his way through case after case, from "The Case of Two Bohemes" to "A Singular Event in Tranquebar," it's all in a day's work, until clues surface that his great nemesis, Professor James Moriarty, might still be alive. . . .

"Riccardi's second pastiche volume (after 2003's The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes) offers tantalizing glimpses of what might have been, as many of the dozen short stories have promising setups. Unfortunately, the resolutions of the intriguing puzzles the author crafts for the great detective are almost all unsatisfying, if not downright silly. The first sign of trouble comes in Dr. Watson's preface, in which Watson claims that Holmes 'came to the conclusion that it was really no concern of his whether Moriarty had ceased to exist or not.' But things really go off the rails in the second story, 'A Case of Criminal Madness,' in which Holmes thwarts a villain's bioweapons with some of his own. Internal inconsistencies, illogical developments, and open-ended conclusions won't please those who seek quality continuations of Doyle's beloved characters. (June)" Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson traverse the British Isles and the Italian peninsula in a rousing new series of adventures.

Ted Riccardi, also the author of The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, is a professor emeritus in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University. He has served as the Counselor of Cultural Affairs at the United States Embassy in New Delhi. Ted and his wife split their time between New York City and Nepal.