Playing Favorites

 

Here’s an attaboy to brighten my day.

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter made King River Life Magazine Staff Favorite Books of 2022.
https://kingsriverlife.com/01/28/king-river-life-staff-favorite-books-of-2022/

Stumbling across the internet

 And speaking of stumbling across while googling, Randall Stock, Holmes scholar, has a list of "the best choices for new fans, and a separate section with the best new items produced in 2022." And there I am, wedged right between Nicholas Meyer and Nancy Springer. Good company. Thanks, Randall!

For the entire list, check here: https://www.bestofsherlock.com/sherlock-gifts.htm

The Textbook for this class

 It's amazing what you'll stumble across when googling.

Lifelong Learners: An Independent Collaborative (an outfit out of Boston, apparently) offered a course last year called The Mysterious World of Art Crime, Fictional and Factual.

This is the list of course materials:

Books and Other Resources:

The Art Forger, B.A. Shapiro

The Rembrandt Affair, Daniel Silva

Stealing Mona Lisa, Carson Morton

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter, Timothy Miller

Painted Ladies, Robert Parker

The Art Thief, Noah Charney

The Raphael Affair, Ian Pears

Now I nothing about this outfit or whether, like the Ted Baxter Famous Newscasters School, they only attracted one student. And no, I don't know whether the course will be repeated (Although if you want to rise up as a mob and demand it, go HERE .)

But it's nice to be included, one way or another.

Ted Baxter Famous Newscasters School.

Review: The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols

 Before we are very far into The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols we learn that
the protocols in question are the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And if you know that name, you’ll know from the outset that this is the tale of one of Holmes’s failures. You’ll know that Holmes could not possibly have won this fight. You’ll perhaps question whether it’s a completely Quixotic mission that he and Watson are embarked on. But you won’t question their desperate need to attempt the impossible.

     The story begins rather Jason Bourne-like. A British secret agent is found drowned, with a terrible document in her possession, which purports to be a plot by a cabal of Jews to take over the world. Holmes is tasked by brother Mycroft to find out whether it’s truth or fiction. Needless to say, they’re soon satisfied on that score. But Holmes wants to take things further, to trace the lie back to its source, to expose the perpetrators, to remove its potency forever. 

    This will involve our heroes in a dangerous journey to the heart of tsarist Russia, to the site of a deadly pogrom, dogged at every step by Russian secret police who will stop at nothing to protect the source of the protocols from exposure. And the journey back will prove eve more dangerous than the journey there. Journey with Holmes and Watson (and a lovely femme fatale) across Europe on the fabulous Orient Express, by milk train and hayrick and in coffins, tilting with windmills all the way. 

     If you’re familiar with the Protocols, you’ll want to read this. If you’re not, you must read this one.