After further investigation, a secret compartment is discovered in the dispatch box, revealing the transcripts of dozens of previously unknown cases. Holmes embargoed all of these tales for one reason or another, either as a result of his own perceived incompetence, or due to the sensitive nature of their contents.

Although Watson recorded most of the tales, either Holmes himself, or the self-promoting Inspector Lestrade contributed several. Resurrected in these previously untold tales are two of Holmes' most well known arch-enemies, Irene Adler, referred to by Holmes as the woman, and the ever-popular Professor Moriarty, both of whom actually recruit Holmes' assistance.

None of these after-market collections seem to be shy about introducing both fictional and real-life historical figures into the Holmes universe. The Confidential Casebook is no different in this respect, tying Holmes to Ida Tarbell, Consuelo Vanderbilt, James Whistler, and even as a passenger on the Titanic.

Expanding on the original sixty tales written by Sir Doyle, The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes brings us nineteen new tales of my favorite super-sleuth. Although a somewhat entertaining diversion, I found most of these tales to be rather trite and contrived.

I thought the first few cases ended rather abruptly, leaving me with a feeling of, "Um, oh." And I generally don't care for the habit third-party authors have of tying the character to real-life people and events, or dredging up long-gone characters to capitalize on their popularity. Although I must admit, I did enjoy seeing Ms. Adler get the better of Holmes yet again, and Moriarty coming to him, hat in hand.

I don't quite know what it is about the after-market Holmes stories, but something about them is just different from the original Doyle tales. Maybe it's that I know the original author didn't pen them. Maybe these authors don't write in quite the same style as Doyle. I don't quite know what it is, but something is missing. And I've found this to be true of almost all the after-market Holmes books I've read, not just this one.

I found The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes to be a somewhat entertaining alternate view of the world of Sherlock Holmes and give it 3 out of 5. If, like me, you regret that Doyle only wrote sixty original tales and hunger for more, I'd recommend giving The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes a read, but shop around to make sure you get the best price because I really don't feel it was worth the $15 I paid for it. In comparison, that's how much I paid for the complete, sixty-tale, Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes collection at Diesel-eBooks.

OUR RATING: 3 of 5

Harikrishna S. Aravapalli is a Senior Technical Architect at SETLABS, Infosys and has 15 years of experience in databases, data warehouses, business intelligence technologies and IT strategies. He worked for Wipro and Accenture prior to Infosys. He may be reached at krishpalli123@yahoo.com.