#Titanuary ‘The Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes-The Haunting Of Torre Abbey’ by Carol Bugge

About the book…

Sherlock Holmes receives a request for aid from Lord Charles Cary, whose family is seemingly being threatened by ghosts in and around the family manor, Torre Abbey.

Once a monastery, the abbey has a long history of hauntings. While skeptical of the supernatural, Holmes does believe that the Carys are in danger, a belief that proves horrifyingly accurate when, shortly after Holmes and Watson arrive, a household member dies mysteriously, seemingly of fright.

As strange sightings and threatening apparitions become almost commonplace, the companions must uncover the secrets of the abbey if they are to have any hope of protecting the living and avenging the dead.

The fifteenth instalment in the Titan collection of Sherlock (and Watson’s!) continuing adventures, ‘The Haunting of Torre Abbey’ was published in 2000 in e-book and paperback formats. Good news if you have a Kindle Unlimited membership, it is currently one of several titles in this series available on K.U!

We all know that Sherlock’s central tenant is that, whenever you remove everything that is impossible, what is left, must be the truth, no matter how improbable.

So how does he rationalise and deal with ghosts?

There must be another angle which he and Watson need to consider, another motive behind why this is occurring to the brother and sister, being beleagured by a headless monk.

You immediately think that there must be an inheritence or something valuable at stake as Watson goes all mooney eyed (as per!)whilst Holmes begins debunking what cannot be a ghostly apparition.

This is not a long read, it is pretty fast paced and there are many, many secrets to be unearthed from amongst the Cary family vaults. The typical tropes are put into play and it is pretty well realised as part of the new Holmes adventures. I found it engaging and pleasing , but then I am always happy to read the further adventures of the original detective duo so there may be people who have vastly differing opinions to mine.

If I was to complain about anything, it is probably the littlest issues about the use of American-isms which are not unique to this writer of ‘New Holmes’, quite a few others do this too, but if that is the worst that you can say-and as someone who is actually pretty fond of the Basil Rathbone movies, not exactly canonical-then that is hardly the harshest criticism, nor the worst reason for avoiding a fun adventure in a -possibly-haunted Abbey!

About the book…

Carole Buggé aka C.E. Lawrence has nine published novels, six novellas and a dozen or so short stories and poems. Her work has received glowing reviews from such publications as Kirkus, The Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, The Boston Herald, Ellery Queen, and others.

Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines.Winner of both the Euphoria Poetry Competition and the Eve of St. Agnes Poetry Award, she is also a Pushcart Prize nominee and First Prize winner of the Maxim Mazumdar Playwriting Competition, the Chronogram Literary Fiction Prize, Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Award,and the Jean Paiva Memorial Fiction award, which included an NEA grant to read her fiction and poetry at Lincoln Center.
A finalist in the McClaren, MSU and Henrico Playwriting Competitions, she has read her work at Barnes and Noble, The Knitting Factory, Mercy College, Merritt Books, the Colony Cafe and the Gryphon Bookstore. She has received grants from Poets and Writers, as well as the New York State Arts Council. Her story “A Day in the Life of Comrade Lenin” received an Honorable Mention in St. Martin’s Best Fantasy and Horror Stories, and she was a winner in the Writer’s Digest Competition in both the playwriting and essay categories.Her plays and musicals have been presented in New York City at The Players Club, Manhattan Punchline, Pulse Theatre, The Van Dam Street Playhouse, Love Creek, Playwrights Horizons, HERE, the Episcopal Actors’ Guild, the Jan Hus Theatre, Lakota Theatre, The Open Book, The 78th Street Theatre, Genesius Guild, the 14th Street Y, and Shotgun Productions, as well as the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, The Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, Actors and
Writers in Olivebridge, and the Byrdcliffe Theatre in Woodstock, New York.

Links-http://www.celawrence.com/

Twitter @TitanBooks @C_E_Lawrence