Of interest is The Illustrated Speckled Band: The Original 1910 Stage Production in Script and Photographs, edited by Leslie S. Klinger. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s play is joined by a contemporary review, notes on the principal actors involved (among them Lyn Harding as Moriarty and H.A. Saintsbury as Holmes), and an essay by R. Dixon Smith on the original story and its stage adaptation and production.

Wessex Press also offers a CD of historical interest to Baker Street buffs: Starrett Speaks: The Lost Recordings ($12.95). Several brief readings by Vincent Starrett of his own work are joined by the audio of Robert Cromie’s half hour TV interview of Starrett and fellow Sherlockian Orlando Park.

Available through Gasogene Books.

The 92-year-old semi-official investigator Victoria Trumbull was based on the author's mother, poet Dionis Coffin Riggs, who was almost 99 and still contributing a weekly column to the Vineyard Gazette and visiting a nursing home to "read to the elderly" when she died in 1997. Interspersed among the tours and descriptions of "special places" throughout this beautifully illustrated and entertainingly written travel guide are quotes from the Trumbull novels and examples of the elder Riggs' poetry. A section on island-grown plants presents in vivid color some of the flowers that gave their names to novels in the series.

Order online or print a form to mail from Cynthia Riggs' site, click here. Or call to place your order: (508) 693-9352.

First published in Great Britain by Rupert Books in 1999, Cox’s memoir offers an insider’s view of the Granada Television series, which between 1984 and 1994 introduced one of the best Sherlock Holmes impersonators. Writing, design, directorial, and main cast credits are given for each episode, followed by several pages of commentary, not tedious and unnecessary plot synopses but frank discussions of the problems presented, decisions made, what worked and what didn’t.

Cox is almost always laudatory of his coworkers, but his candor about dubious decisions and what he would change in retrospect erase any suspicion of puffery. Jeremy Brett is shown as kind, generous, and totally professional in his approach to his craft despite his personal troubles, including hospitalization for bipolar disorder. A genuine student of the original stories, he would carefully compare them with their adaptations and he sometimes disputed changes the writers had made. His hope to do all the stories was prevented by his own declining health, along with the difficulties presented by some of the stories, whether of rights, expense, or adaptability.

One of Cox’s most intriguing subjects, albeit non-criminous in the conventional sense, is the commercialization and consequent erosion in quality of British TV. The Broadcasting Act of 1990 brought about “the British television industry we enjoy today, in which ratings and cost-efficiency are all-important and programme decisions are taken by schedulers and accountants.” Speaking of the latter group, after noting complaints about budget items like travel and lodging expenses that do not “show on the screen,” Cox notes, “Neither, of course, does the cost of accountancy.”

Available through Gasogene Books.

As in the 2003 parent volume, the emphasis is on detective fiction, concentrating on series characters and excluding the related fields of intrigue, thriller, suspense, adventure, and true crime. Series are organized in three broad categories‚ amateur, public, and private detectives‚ and subdivided into smaller groups. After an introductory definition, each subgroup is alphabetical by author. Series entries are chronological, with titles covered in the parent volume merely listed, those published since provided plot summaries, descriptive rather than critical. Some authors omitted from the parent volume have been added (e.g., John Dunning's Cliff Janeway, Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January, Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti) along with others who have debuted since (e.g., C.S. Harris' Sebastian St. Cyr, Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce, Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs). Other features include an annotated secondary bibliography and filmography and indexes by author, title, subject, character, and location.