Anthony Boucher

     I don't recall having read The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, published in 1940, in the past, but probably did so.  The Baker Street Irregulars, as any fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories knows, were a rag-tag gang of street urchins who assisted Holmes on several of his cases.  In this book, they are a literary Sherlock Holmes fan society, dedicated to the preservation of "the Sacred Writings", the Sherlock Holmes stories.  There is, in fact, a real Baker Street Irregular society, founded in 1934 by Christopher Morley that continues to this day and upon which the society in the book is based.  

    The society in the book is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the real group; the fictional members are concerned about the proposal of a Hollywood film studio to make a movie of the Holmes story The Speckled Band, a story that caused me nightmares when I read it as a child.  The Irregulars believe that the scriptwriter chosen by the studio, an ex-detective named Stephen Worth, has nothing but contempt for the Holmes stories and will turn out a screen play that will make a mockery of the Sacred Writings, so some of their members converge on Hollywood to make sure that does not happen.  

    Worth is apparently murdered shortly after they arrive at a mansion provided by the movie studio, but the corpse disappears, and a series of adventures evoking the Holmes stories befall the Irregulars over the next few days, until a very real corpse turns up.

    I found the story an interesting Golden Age puzzle, even if it's a bit labored with all the references to the Holmes stories crammed into it, down to having a housekeeper named Mrs. Hudson and a not-too-bright police sergeant named Watson.   

Grade: B.  

    I found The Case of the Seven Sneezes to be a disturbing book, mainly because of a series of cat killings that may or may not relate to several human murders.  Members of a wedding party have gathered on an island to celebrate the Silver Anniversary of the wedding of the owners of the island.  Shortly after they arrive, they find they are completely cut off from the mainland with no means of escape, and a servant on the island is found injured after an attempt was made to cut his throat, echoing an unsolved murder that occurred on the eve of the wedding in 1914.  With a cast of unpleasant characters so confined, is it any surprise that more murderous attempts follow?  

Grade:  C.  I'm not reading this one again.