Review of Five Miles of Country by The Historical Novel Society.

“This elegant publication… cleverly develops an ingenious and original new plot, finally delivering to the reader a stunning conclusion to the novel.”

Review by Julia Stoneham for The Historical Novel Society.

The Historical Novel Society was founded in the UK in 1997. It was “conceived as something of a campaigning society for the support of historical fiction. There are now more than 20,000 reviews online, with as many as we can squeeze into our magazine, the Historical Novels Review.”

Since the beginning of literary time readers have been well supplied by writers writing about writing and the characters they created.

From Sappho, through Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens and on to the moderns, we are blessed, few more abundantly than Arthur Conan Doyle with his Mr Holmes, with critiques, homages, spoofs. adaptations and many versions of his work, for stage, radio and both sizes of screen. So much so that we might well label him “Mr Spinoff”. Then, just when enough might be said to be enough, along comes Gretchen Altabef with Five Miles of Country, the third book in a trilogy.

This elegant publication takes the usual surprising liberties with the accepted Sherlock Holmes-Conan Doyle characters, as well as facts regarding relationships and locations and cleverly develops an ingenious and original new plot, finally delivering to the reader a stunning conclusion to the novel.

Gretchen Altabef is an award-winning author of new Sherlock Holmes mysteries, sci-fi, and historical stories. Her books brim with imagination and a news reporter’s excitement for the true history of the day. THESE SCATTERED HOUSES brings Holmes to New York during his ‘great hiatus’ REMARKABLE POWER OF STIMULUS follows in London. During the investigation of a gruesome murder, Holmes seizes a second chance with the woman. The trilogy continues with FIVE MILES OF COUNTRY, where Sherlock returns to New York to solve a murder in Thomas Edison’s moving picture studio, and Mrs Irene Adler-Holmes takes on a Broadway ghost. THE KEYS OF DEATH is a genesis story of the world’s most famous address, 221B Baker Street, told by it’s landlady, Mrs Hudson.