The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Great War

 The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Great War (2021) by Simon Guerrier

Another adventure for Holmes & Watson! Wait...not that Watson. Augusta Watson is young VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) member serving at a hospital near the frontlines in France in 1917. She's a very frustrated service member--after being trained in medicine, ambulance (and other) driving, mechanics, and various other skills, she's being used as skivvy for the nursing staff. Got dirty linens that need washing--let Watson do it. Got patients that need all sorts of bodily fluids cleaned up--let Watson do it. And her attitude sometimes let's her frustration show. So, she's surprised to find that when she's been called to Matron's office (again) it's not to have the riot act read.

She's to have the honor of showing the latest dignitary to visit the front around the hospital. These men generally come to see what "can be done for the boys in the trenches" and then don't seem to get anything done. But when she sees that this particular guest is the illustrious Mr. Sherlock Holmes, she's even less thrilled than usual. You see, with her last name she's had to endure every kind of joke possible--especially when she (a woman!) expressed the desire to study medicine. Nobody takes her seriously and she blames the celebrity of Holmes and his biographer. 

But she can't help but get interested when she realizes the detective is there to investigate a mystery and not just dole out empty promises about making things better. Holmes is on the trail of a young officer who was injured at the front and supposedly died at the hospital, but there is no record of him. Not as having been on the ward. Not as having been dead on arrival and sent straight to the morgue. No record at all. Watson is assigned to assist Holmes in his inquiries and the further they dig, the more they come to realize that there is a deeper plot...one that seems intent on causing unrest and higher casualities among the soldiers--on both sides of No Man's Land. It's up to Holmes and Watson to find those behind the plot and put a stop to it.

Not every entry in "The Further Adventures" series of Holmes stories is created equal. I don't seem to be able to resist these whenever I come across them--in used bookstores, at our annual community book fair, or at Barnes & Noble--and I've let myself in for some real stinkers (The Veiled Detective, I'm looking at you). But once I got over the fact that we just had to have a nurse's aid by the name of Watson, I settled down and enjoyed this one. The mystery is a good one with several well-placed clues and a lot of war-time adventure. I was just a bit worried that we were going to venture down the path blazed by Laurie King (throwing this Holmes & Watson into a relationship), but I don't think that was the plan. And by the end of the story I was hoping that Guerrier had penned another. There are some sentences here and there that refer to an adventure in which Augusta Watson gets to meet the Dr. Watson. But, alas, it seems that adventures has not yet been discovered among Watson's papers.

Overall, an enjoyable Holmes pastiche. ★★★★

First line: By the first week of December 1917, I thought myself quite inured to the horrors of war.

Las line: Nonetheless, do write and say if, for the sake of your archive, you should also care for my own account of those events.
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Deaths: 8 (six shot; two stabbed)