Watson's Wives and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes by Thomas A Turley - Review (ARC)

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I received an ARC from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for an honest review.

Of all the conundrums that have puzzled Sherlockian scholars, few have been thornier than the “vexed question” of Dr. Watson’s wives. In these ten stories, readers will meet the all-but-unknown women who preceded and succeeded Mary Morstan, as well as learning more about poor Mary’s fate. Other cases involve Our Heroes with all levels of Victorian society, including prime ministers and prostitutes, aristocrats and generals, amateur sleuths and Scotland Yarders, composers, novelists, and even ghosts. The tales cover the entire span of Holmes and Watson’s friendship, running from 1881 to 1937.

Watson's Wives and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes by Thomas A Turley is a collection of ten Holmesian short stories that I'm glad I jumped at the chance to read.  I've always loved reading about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson whether they're the originals from Arthur Conan Doyle or complete reimaginings from other authors.  This set hews very closely to the original source material, but with one main twist: Watson's been married three times and we get to learn a little more about the three women and Watson's (and Sherlock's by association) life with them.  Now, I'm not a Sherlockian scholar in the least so I wouldn't quite say that the question of Watson's wives has particularly "vexed" me since I'm much more interested in Holmes and Watson's friendship, but I still had a great time reading these short stories.

Now, I'd like to briefly talk about each of the ten featured stories in this collection.  As I said, all of the stories were good reads, but I will say I definitely preferred those where the women in Watson's life had a more prominent role in the story (or on a similar note where we learn more about Watson's personal life).

The first story, "A Yuletide Tragedy", features a woman Watson was close to in the past (not one of his wives), but it gives us a great look at Watson's life.  It was cool seeing Lestrade and Gregson working together on the central mystery, but mainly I wanted to mention that I laughed out loud at one of the characters being named Cumberbatch.  The second story, "A Game of Skittles," wasn't a favorite, but I did appreciate the funny little character beats between Holmes and Watson and they kind of reminded me of their Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law movie counterparts.  In this story, Watson barely makes a reference to a wife.  Story three, "The Catastrophic Cyclist," was underwhelming and could have remained and "untold tale," but I appreciated that Sherlock himself acted as the narrator.  The fourth story, "A Ghost From Christmas Past," is one of my favorites from the entire collection. The best part of this story is that we learn more about Watson's personal life and we get a look back at his three late wives, Constance, Mary, and Priscilla.  I also appreciated seeing how much Holmes cares for Watson, even if I do favor a different reading of his personal life. Finally, I'd like to note that the footnotes continually took me out of all the stories when they were promoting other MX Publishing releases. The fifth story, "Mrs. Hudson's Visitor" goes quick, but it's a refreshing one told by Mrs. Hudson herself.  I loved that this iteration of the character isn't much older than her famous tenants.  It's cool that she recognizes that they really are the dream team and that they balance each other out, but best of all she offers Mary words of encouragement.

Next up, we have story number six, "The Adventure of the Lost Alliance" which started off promisingly with the "behind the scenes" elements with Doyle as Watson's literary agent.  That said my interest in this one fizzled out fairly early on.  For the seventh story, "The Adventure of the Disgraced Captain," we get to see a lot more of Priscilla, Watson's third wife, than we've had the chance to before now.  It's intriguing to see his relationship with her, but the treatment of the LGBT elements of this story were irritating and unnecessary.  The best part of "The Solitary Violinist," the eighth story of the collection, is that Holmes gets to narrate, but Priscilla, Watson's third wife just gets a mention.  As for the ninth story, "What Came Before,"  Priscilla takes more of a front seat in this story which is much appreciated.  Otherwise, though, this story is a bit too long and tonally is a little too different.  In regards to the final story, "The Adventure of the Tainted Canister," Mary took on more of role compared to other stories in this collection and as much as I liked seeing that, I loved that Holmes reiterates just how highly he regards Watson.

Watson's Wives and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes by Thomas A Turley is a must-read for fans of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.  The author does a great job of making these ten stories feel like they fit in with Arthur Conan Doyle's originals while fleshing out other aspects of their personal lives that may just be mentioned in passing in Doyle's stories and adding in more intriguing mysteries to ponder over.  Every single story didn't always work for me, there's still much to like and it offers quite a bit of variety for everyone to find something they can appreciate.  Thanks again to Reedsy Discovery and MX Publishing for the opportunity read this book!

My review is also on Reedsy Discovery and Goodreads.