Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #16

Arthur Conan Doyle · Richard A. Lupoff · Laird Long · Jack Grochot

Apr 2015 · Wildside Press LLC

About this ebook

"Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine" returns with issue #16, presenting the best in modern and classic mystery fiction! Included this time are the usual column by Dr John H. Watson, plus the following works:

The Ironic Story of The Stevenson-Doyle Letters by Gary Lovisi The Contributions of William S. Baring-Gould, by Daniel DiQuinzio A Medieval Mystery, by Peter James Quirk Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl! by Richard A. Lupoff Hangin' with Iron Mike, by Stan Trybulski Inspector Romford's Greatest Cases by John Grant The Last Song, by Dianne Neral Ell Santa and The Shortstop, by Steve Liskow The Case of the Addinton Tragedy, by Jack Grochot Gold-Digger, by Laird Long The Yellow Face, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine" is produced under license from Conan Doyle Estate Ltd.

About the author

The most famous fictional detective in the world is Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. However, Doyle was, at best, ambivalent about his immensely successful literary creation and, at worst, resentful that his more "serious" fiction was relatively ignored. Born in Edinburgh, Doyle studied medicine from 1876 to 1881 and received his M.D. in 1885. He worked as a military physician in South Africa during the Boer War and was knighted in 1902 for his exceptional service. Doyle was drawn to writing at an early age. Although he attempted to enter private practice in Southsea, Portsmouth, in 1882, he soon turned to writing in his spare time; it eventually became his profession. As a Liberal Unionist, Doyle ran, unsuccessfully, for Parliament in 1903. During his later years, Doyle became an avowed spiritualist. Doyle sold his first story, "The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley," to Chambers' Journal in 1879. When Doyle published the novel, A Study in Scarlet in 1887, Sherlock Holmes was introduced to an avid public. Doyle is reputed to have used one of his medical professors, Dr. Joseph Bell, as a model for Holmes's character. Eventually, Doyle wrote three additional Holmes novels and five collections of Holmes short stories. A brilliant, though somewhat eccentric, detective, Holmes employs scientific methods of observation and deduction to solve the mysteries that he investigates. Although an "amateur" private detective, he is frequently called upon by Scotland Yard for assistance. Holmes's assistant, the faithful Dr. Watson, provides a striking contrast to Holmes's brilliant intellect and, in Doyle's day at least, serves as a character with whom the reader can readily identify. Having tired of Holmes's popularity, Doyle even tried to kill the great detective in "The Final Problem" but was forced by an outraged public to resurrect him in 1903. Although Holmes remained Doyle's most popular literary creation, Doyle wrote prolifically in other genres, including historical adventure, science fiction, and supernatural fiction. Despite Doyle's sometimes careless writing, he was a superb storyteller. His great skill as a popular author lay in his technique of involving readers in his highly entertaining adventures. Richard Allen Lupoff was born on February 21, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York. He studied at the University of Miami. His main work was in science fiction and mystery, but he also wrote humor and satire, nonfiction and reviews. He also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He was best known for co-editing fanzine XERO, which won a Hugo Award in 1963, with his wife Pat Lupoff and Bhob Stewart. In his early career he worked as a technical writer. His first book was a biography published in 1965, Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure. In 1967, he began publishing fiction works, One Million Centuries was the first. Some of his other works include Sacred Locomotive Flies (1971), Sword of the Demon (1977), The Triune Man (1976), Space War Blues (1978), Into the Aether (1974), the Twin Planet series, Circumpolar! (1987), and the Sun's End series, Sun's End (1984), and Galaxy's End (1988). He sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms, using Addison E. Steele for Buck Rogers tie-ins, and Ova Hamlet for parodies of famous science fiction authors. Richard Lupoff died on October 22, 2020 in California. He was 85.