Changes

Dr Watson is happy to be returning to Lyme Regis, and the woman he loves. He gets more than he bargained for, though, as he is quickly embroiled in a series of killings which bear strange resemblances to some of the cases he and Holmes have been involved in. The great detective joins him, with Lestrade following to assist in their investigations, and the trio realise that they are dealing with a haunting figure from their past...

So far so good - however, while Ruffle's first book was augmented by some really outstanding vignettes, I can't help but feel the additions here are significantly weaker. The dozen or so on Sherlock are generally readable but with little to recommend them, a real disappointment given the wonderful way Ruffle captured the friendship between Holmes and Watson so many times in the first book. (That said, William McGonagall's ''Ode to Sherlock Holmes'' is something of a find, a three page piece by the legendarily awful poet which can't be described in words fit for a polite website.) The other shorts are ghost stories, some set in Lyme, and a history of the town. On reading this, there's no doubt that Ruffle loves the place he lives in, but the pieces have little of interest to those of us unfamiliar with the place.