Originally published some 20 years ago, this collection features five intertwined investigations, written in the spirit of the greatest detective of all time. The modern-day protagonist originally hated his middle name – ‘Sherlock’ of course – with which his Holmes-obsessed father had burdened him. But ‘Sherl’ gradually develops a similar fixation with scientific deduction, and starts up Baskerville’s detective agency in partnership with a pal. His partner acts as a substitute for Dr Watson, which gives Sherl plenty of opportunity to expound upon his theories. In theory, his speciality is rigid application of the Holmesian method of deduction… although in practice these stories lack the idiosyncratic insights and impressive intellect of Conan Doyle’s original.

Set at the end of the 20th century, each standalone story offers a single investigation into the kind of crime which might’ve attracted the attention of the great man himself – a missing journalist who could’ve been abducted by UFOs; the kidnappers who ransomed the same person twice. Sherl’s stories feature a cast of characters which reflect current concerns: pop stars, animal right activists and a suspicious stalker. They’re written in modern language without any pretentions towards mimicking Conan Doyle’s style, and each episode contains a cornucopia of clues, typically British supporting characters, and plenty of red herrings.

In keeping with the original stories, these aren’t shockers or thrillers, but gently entertaining and pleasantly puzzling mysteries. Initially, Sherl’s discomfort at playing his role (complete with period costume) is reflected in the somewhat uninspired opening investigation – but the writing tightens as the character becomes more proficient in the later stories. So if you’re not immediately struck by the first story, I’d suggest you stick with it.

There are moments which didn’t work for me – when Sherl gets involved in fisticuffs, for instance; that being the more normal role of the Dr Watson character. It also felt a little strange that these investigations were related in the first-person, from Sherl’s perspective rather than being told by the faithful companion. Similarly, I suspect that if you’re a fan of the Benedict Cumberbatch TV series then these will seem somewhat twee and maybe a little lacking in cryptic wit. (It can’t be a coincidence that the figure on the cover illustration looks a lot like BC — don’t be misled! These are NOT stories from the TV show).

Instead, this is a selection of solid mystery stories in the grand old English tradition, even down to uncanny happenings and things that go bump in the night. They don’t lean too far towards nostalgia or intellectual obscurity, nor do they feel like a pastiche of the original Sherlock stories. A pleasant afternoon’s entertainment.

7/10

I wanted to like this more. The short stories (the mysteries) are just far too simplistic. The main character isn't very likable. I just had too many gripes to like this.

This was a quick read for me. There are plenty of nods to the original Holmes, and the book is broken up into several shorter stories, much like in Conan-Doyle's works. That said, I think the writing was a bit perfunctory and strained - likely from trying too hard to fit into the mold of the original. Enjoyable, but not the best Holmes spin-off out there. I think most readers will hold updated re-tellings to a much higher standard with shows like BBC's Sherlock and Elementary out there, portraying a modern Holmes so wonderfully.

Being a fan of the BBC series, I was curious to see how this author would put his mark on the Sherlock franchise.

And it was interesting! I like it. This book is like a collection of short stories about a man whose middle name is Sherlock, and his friend Mo who proposed this endeavor, and they set about solving crimes and mysteries. Each story could be a little longer but the short stories are varied enough to not make you sick of following Sherl and Mo. It's just the right bite size. It makes it ok to put the book down and pick it up again on a new story.

Hope there'll be another collection soon as this was most interesting. Towards the end though, I was trying to apply similar tactics as Sherl. Hahaha. I was close but not quite close enough. Hope they are able to sustain the business, as money is never discussed here...that would simply not do.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for introducing this author and book to me.

I received a digital copy from NetGalley for an honest review.

I am a self-proclaimed Sherlockophile. I have to get my hands on any book Sherlock-related, so was psyched to have this be my first read from NetGalley. But sadly, I was disappointed by this novel. It is a modern day take on the Sherlock Holmes canon - placing him in present-day London and working with a marketing focused friend, Mo - where Christopher Sherlock Webster starts the Baskerville Agency, aimed at investigating a myriad of crimes (we read about four cases). My primary gripe with the cases was that they were often too easy - I found myself solving them before our detective - which NEVER happened with Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I appreciate the obvious affection for the original Holmes stories, but this outing did not live up to my (high) expectations.

A very good and solid traditional mystery. Well written, good plot, with well described characters.
I really enjoyed and recommend it.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Thistle Publishing

When there is old good Sherlock involved, all detective story fans line up - to read, to crack a mystery and by all means to enjoy a good case. And this book provides you with a good read - cases are lined up in five short stories, so no need to rush to read it in one night. Some readers are disappointed by the fact that stories are written from the perspective of the detective himself and his partner in crime is just a mere mention in the book, but I would say it allows a story to stand out from all other forms and means of Sherlock adaptations. The detective doesn't spill out all the beans, and you're not mere observer of the case - you can actually feel like the modern Sherlock and have your Eureka moments just before he does (which is even too easy most of the time).

Plot is easy to follow, somewhat witty but nevertheless cases are serious. Another star, from me, thriller book fan, is for the soft content After numerous thriller stories with violence and serial crimes, this book will be quite a short beachy vacation.

Why not 5? Because 5s from me are for the cruel and intriguing serial killer cases, which I hope will never happen in the victorian parlour of Christopher Sherlock Webster.

A cleverly written easy read that is a tribute to Sherlock Homes. Christopher Sherlock Webster and his friend Mo Rennie solve 5 cases. This is an enjoyable read with a good concept.

Opening with a short back-story we learn that Christopher Webster's father was an avid Conan Doyle fan, giving his son the middle name 'Sherlock', which didn't bode well for young Webster during his formative years. Later estranged from his father and following his father's death, Christopher is drawn to Sherlock Holmes and ends up reading the Holmes' cannon. Years later an old school friend, Mo, propses 'Sherl' (Christopher) sets up a detective agency based around the infamous Sherlock Holmes, completing their office with Victorian-era and Sherlockian memorabelia, going so far as to give Sherl an authentic wardrobe sans deerstalker, all to market the newly-formed Baskerville Detective Agency.

From here readers are presented with a series of five short stories, each one covering a case investigated by Sherl and his long-term friend, Mo. The cases/stories themselves were fun, mostly believeable and progressed in difficulty but for the amateur-sleuth reader, the earlier cases will probably be fairly easy to solve. However, I liked that Sherl isn't a brainiac and that Mo, unlike Watson, is more interested in marketing the business than cataloguing cases. Indeed, unlike Conan Doyle's stories that're narrated by Watson, Lyons has presented his detective's cases in a first-person narrative. This may not appeal to traditional Sherlock fans but with so many pastiches out there, I found this approach refreshing.

That said, I felt Sherl and Mo as characters fell a little flat. Other than being new to detective work, little is said about them and apart from the introduction there's little character development. If there is to be a sequel I hope we're given a little more insight into the lives and minds of our heroes.

Overall The Sherlock Effect is a fun, quick read, with a nod to Doyle but without attempting to be an imitation of his work. Well worth a read!

The book is a page turner. Starting with the sorrow of being named the same as famous detective, thankfully only middle name, the row with his father and lastly become the namesake itself.

As a fan of Sherlock in the HBO series, it offers me other story about private detectives. The crime itself is not always gruesome-murder, instead it also offer a refreshing tale of millionaire whose wary of his fiance and what happen behind his back.

Consisting of 5 cases, the plot sometimes easily predicted but sometimes there’s twist that will surprise us. Overall it is a very enjoyable reading. I recommend this for reader who love light mystery.


Thanks netgalley and thistle publishing for providing the copy.

Love this book, I was so fresh and new, yes it is based on Sherlock Holmes, but not really. Set in modern times, but with a nod to the past, I really enjoyed it - I hope there will be more.

This book is a series of five cases - short stories - led by Christopher Sherlock Webster and his long time friend Mo Rennie. The idea of the book was intriguing and pulled me in immediately, but it didn’t play off as well as I thought it would.

Mo pulls “Sherl” into the idea of using his middle name and his love of mystery solving to opening up a detective agency based around the infamous Sherlock Homes, decorating their office in Victorian era bobbles and even giving Sherl a wardrobe complete with deerstalker- all in order to market their business. Not such a bad idea!

The cases themselves were not that bad. They were mostly believable, sometimes predictable, and sometimes not solved in time. I liked the idea that Sherl isn’t as much of a genius as his namesake and Mo is more focused on marketing than crime solving. It separates them as individual characters and not incarnations of Sherlock and Watson.

What I didn’t like was that the characters didn’t have a life of their own. They fell flat when it came to any type of growth or development. Both characters are new to detective work, but seeing a dead body, being chased, or having a gun pulled on them doesn’t effect them for long. Especially with Mo, I would have liked to have seen more second thoughts or maybe a greater resolve for the job, not a continuation of the same attitude.

I really enjoyed this book and felt it was a great modern take on Sherlock Holmes. The first thing that caught my attention was the cover. As a lover of Sherlock, the cover immediately grabbed my attention and I'm glad I requested it. The reason I am not giving this book 5 stars is because I think it would have felt more at home if it was written in Mo's POV rather than the first person narrative with Sherl himself. I always enjoyed hearing things from what was inside Watson's head but it's probably just my preference. This was more of a collection of short stories which I LOVED! I was able to squeeze one in here and there when a Holmes fix was needed! I enjoyed the characters and thought the mysteries were fun! This book definitely has all those nice Holmesian feels and would recommend it to other fans!😄

The Sherlock Effect is a collection of five short stories following Christopher Sherlock Webster, known simply as Sherl, and his friend, Mo, as they set up a detective agency called Baskerville's. They aim to solve crimes using the methods of observation and deduction most associated with Sherlock Holmes.

Things I liked about this book:

1. The Cover: The Benedict Cumberbatch-esque silhouette dominating the front was enough to make me squeal with excitement.

2. The Holmesian theme: I've recently finished all fifty-six short stories and four novels of the Sherlock Holmes stories for the second time and was still left wanting more. This book definitely helped to fill the massive gaping hole left behind by the Arthur Conan Doyle stories, and also helped with my serious withdrawal symptoms from the BBC's most recent modern adaptation.

Things I disliked about this book:

1. This book differs from that of the original Sherlock Holmes stories in that it is narrated in the first person by Sherl himself. I feel that this takes away a little from the mystery surrounding the detective, and I wonder if the book would have been made better if it was written from the point of view of Mo in a similar way that most of the original stories were written from the perspective of John Watson.

2. I guessed the solution to two out of the five mysteries. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (because it's fun to feel like a clever genius sometimes), but in this case, I would love to have been derailed and blown away by a twist or two. This never really happened in any of these stories.

In the end, a major appealing feature of this book is it's association with the world of Sherlock Holmes. I was left wondering if this book would have stood on its own without this association; if Christopher Sherlock Webster was just Christopher Webster and he set up a detective agency named something other than Baskerville's perhaps. I think the answer is yes. It's fun to draw parallels with a Holmesian world, but I believe that this book does also stand on its own as a strong collection of mystery short stories.

While this does not live up to the Sherlock stories I adored growing up, this new modern take on Sherlock was a pleasant enough read. I liked the short story aspect of it which make it a quick read.

A Fine Holmesian Diversion

Since it seems that anyone nowadays can write a story or book featuring "Sherlock Holmes" there are a dizzying number of choices out there. To me, most of these copycats and knockoffs suffer from trying way too hard to capture and copy the lightning in a bottle that was Doyle's actual Sherlock Holmes character.

This book follows a different and wiser course. It is set in modern times, (well, the 1990's, when the book was originally written). It features a character who more or less falls into a marketing scheme to set up a Holmes-style detective agency. (His middle name is Sherlock and his Dad was an obsessive fan.) Allied with his pal Mo, this Sherlock adopts Victorian era clothing and starts to play detective. The fun here is that as the action progresses our Sherlock develops more Holmesian characteristics, and the cases taken on by the duo begin to feel more and more like legit Holmes casebook cases, (murder, deception, fraud, blackmail, sometimes a red herring hint of the weird or occult).

This is all worked on a few complementary levels. Each case is a fair enough mystery, with suspects, clues, sometimes a bit of action or a twisty touch. Sherlock and Mo work well as a Holmes/Watson team, or at least their version of such a team. The supporting characters feel very much like the sorts you would find in an original Conan Doyle story. Even the reliance on the deductive method, (which is a bit shaky in the earlier cases), gets better over time.

So, these ended up being tasty morsels, (there are five cases in the book). The lead characters were engaging and the Holmes part was fun without being tedious, heavy-handed or false-feeling. The writing was fine, and served well the generally fast pace. Touches of humor some clever banter spiced things up. All in all this was a fun find.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

I just couldn't with this book. I love Sherlock Holmes mysteries and I am also, usually, a big fan of Holmes retellings but this was bad. When I read the description it seemed right up my alley, but I quickly realized this was not for me. I literally couldn't finish reading it because it was so generic and uninspired. It was missing that element of genius and remarkability seen in the original mysteries. While the main character shares a name with the famous Holmes, he shares little else. His character is bland and unremarkable. Each story was boring and predictable...the exact opposite of what a Holmes mystery should be. Overall, I would pass on this retelling.

I recieved an ARC of this novel via Netgalley in excahnge for an honest review.

Ugh, I hate writing multiple "I didn't like it/I couldn't finish it" reviews in a row, but this is my third this morning (so it'll probably be extra brief). This sounded like a fun read - another modern-day application of Holmes and his methods (and particular madness). I don't have any problem with the interpretation/adaptation of classics into other time frames and settings - I quite enjoy them, when well done. And the modern-day world holds a lot of possibility for Sherlockian story-telling, so a modern-day spin-off is a fine concept for me. But this one was just modern. As in set today. Not as in original or novel or any of the other synonyms... Christopher Sherlock Webster just never jumps off the page; he's named after the Great Detective but shares nothing else with him. There's none of the brio of Holmes - no quirks or foibles, no bizarre demonstrations of unimaginable deduction, no madness... He's just a guy, named by his dad for a literary hero - and not even first-named, middle-named - remarkable only for his average-guy nature. He's not uninteresting, he's just regular. And that's not enough to sell him and his "cases" as Holmesian mysteries of deduction. I read the intro/setup and the first story, then couldn't read any more. It is possible that things picked up in tone or style, but it seems unlikely - and I couldn't gin up the enthusiasm to continue long enough to find out...

I didnt know what to expect from this book, being a Sherlock fan I hoped it wouldn’t disappoint and over all it didnt. A nice selection of stories all quiet different from each other with a nice Victorian feel to them.

I have been an ardent fan of Holmesian literature nearly all my life, ever since I picked up 'The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (in 2 volumes)' from my mother's library when I was 11 or 12. I have watched nearly all the dramatizations on film based on the characters Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I still read through the books at least once a year, every year, when I'm conflicted about what to read. Needless to say, I am a reasonable authority when it comes to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional sleuth. This almost obsession is what led me to choose 'The Sherlock Effect' by Raymond Kay Lyon from the vast array of books at Netgalley.
The book brings to life, 4 chapters from the adventures of Christopher 'Sherl' Sherlock Webster (Holmes) and his college friend and business partner (-in-crime, forgive the pun please) Morris 'Mo' Rennie (Watson, of course) who live and solve crimes in present day London (the novel was originally published in 1997, so present day might be stretching it a little). Mr. Webster, who grew up and advanced into adulthood resenting his conspicuous middle name given by a Holmes-obsessed father throws himself into everything-Holmes after his father's demise. Along comes Mo with a plan to open up an agency of consulting detectives (which he offers to bank roll), with the hope that Sherl's unique middle name will fetch them some clients. It does, and work starts coming their way in due time.
The Sherlock Effect is interesting enough. It is an easy read, written simply and concisely. What is lacking is Conan Doyle's deductive brilliance, which is the highlight of the original. While the plots are somewhat distinctive, they lack the depth and intrigue that keeps the reader on tenterhooks until the very end. The stories and characterisations are rather transparent. The premise itself isn't exactly new (it might have been in 1997, but not so much in 2018. There are literally countless works, both in literature and on film, derived from Conan Doyle's Holmes available today). All in all, I'd characterise 'The Sherlock Effect' it as an average, enjoyable read that entertains but doesn't offer much of a cerebral challenge.