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Noted West Country philanthropist Lord Backwater iskilled – by poachers, according to the police investigating. His sondisagrees, and calls in Sherlock Holmes, who quickly establishes thatthe true solution to the mystery is much stranger – involving a fearedcriminal brotherhood, crimes from many years past, and the Gates ofHell themselves.

I should probably point out that the Gates of Hell, and the manstyling himself as the Man From Hell, aren't actually supernatural –but that's not to downplay the danger that Holmes, his faithfulcompanion Watson, and the new Lord Backwater face. The action buildsto a thrilling climax as the great detective uses his powers ofdeduction to work out the secrets of the victim's past.

This is fairly standard for a Sherlock Holmes story, in many ways. TheWest Country setting and the death of a member of the aristocracy,followed by his heir hiring Holmes, is strongly reminiscent of ''Houndof the Baskervilles'' – and let's face it, when it comes to detectivestories, the ''Hound'' is hardly a bad one to take inspiration from.It's the emulation that's really impressive here – I've read all ofConan Doyle's Holmes novels and short stories, and many of the otherbooks to have been written using Sherlock as a character, in additionto some internet fanfic. While I've enjoyed many of the books writtenby later authors, I'd never previously read anyone whose style wasparticularly close to the original. Barrie Roberts, in this book, hasan incredibly similar style to Conan Doyle himself, both in his voicewriting as Watson and in the overall plot construction, from theobligatory scene early on when Holmes dazzles Backwater with hisdeductions about the heir, to the action climax which is soreminiscent of some of the short stories.

The mystery has twists and turns, but is probably one of the easierSherlock Holmes stories to 'solve'. I could guess reasonable amountsof what was happening as we went along, and while I can't hand onheart say that I guessed the murderer too far in advance, thecharacter in question was certainly on my suspects list. That's not acriticism, though – as much as I like the ingenious plots of somedetective novels with seven or eight twists and turns at the end, Ialso enjoy feeling intelligent when I work out at least some of what'shappening, and Roberts definitely 'plays fair' with the reader, givingthem enough information to make a good stab at a solution.

Of all the Sherlock Holmes stories out there written by authors otherthan Conan Doyle, this is definitely the one I'd be happiest torecommend to fans of the originals. For those people who've never reada Holmes book (is there anyone still out there in that category?),this works well enough as a detective novel anyway, and will hopefullyinspire people to search out Sir Arthur's books.