The titular Irregulars are serving as advisors on a new Hollywood adaptation of Sherlock Holmes’s work, a movie project that has their hackles up because it’s a hard-boiled story and the screenwriter is an ass with no respect for the source material. Plenty seem to share the negative opinion of the screenwriter: warnings with references to Holmes start coming in, and then, murder! Now the Irregulars test their detective mettle to solve the crime, with or without help from the police. I enjoyed this a great deal; I don’t know everything about Sherlock, probably just the more obvious references presented here, but I did find all of the clues fair when they were explained. Worth reading if you like Holmes or Holmes-adjacent fiction.

This book was recommended to me by a browse on the American Mystery Classics website. ( )

Metropolis Pictures in Hollywood, is making a Sherlock Holmes movie based on Conan Doyle’s “The Speckled Band.” F.X. Weinberg is the producer and has been inundated with correspondence from a group called The Baker Street Irregulars. They are concerned that Steven Worth is the writer assigned to handle the adaptation. Seems Worth has contempt for Holmes and is a writer of hard-boiled detectives, which is the style he plans to write in. The Baker Street Irregulars are an international group of Holmes supporters and are sticklers for accuracy.

In an effort to smooth relations, Weinberg invites five members to come out to California and be consultants to help assure accuracy — all expenses paid by the studio. Seems like a fairly safe solution.

Instead, a murder occurs and the body goes missing. Each Baker Street Irregular finds themselves involved in an event that is similar to one of the Holmes tales. There are cryptograms to solve, events to reason out, frustrated police — did I mention there is a Watson involved?

It isn’t a simple read, as Anthony Boucher can put red herrings, twists, unusual happenings and stray clues that do fit in at some point. Boucher is a top writer from the late 1930-1940 era. This is a mystery with many moving parts! ( )

If I try to remove my bias, this is probably more a 4.5 star read, but my unapologetic adoration of Sherlock Holmes makes it impossible; this story was just too much fun for a fan like me.

In brief (ok, not really): a movie is being made of The Adventure of the Speckled Band and a Holmesian society called The Baker Street Irregulars is vociferously opposed to the studio's choice of writer. The society roster has enough Big Names that the studio must take them seriously, but the writer - an unapologetic and acidic critic of everything Holmes - has an iron-clad contract making it impossible to fire him. In an effort to appease the Baker Street Irregulars, 5 of them are invited to Hollywood to act as script advisors, but during their welcome party, the scriptwriter crashes the party, makes a drunken spectacle of himself, is rendered unconscious, and taken upstairs to sleep it off. He is subsequently murdered during the night, long after the party is over, leaving the Baker Street Irregulars both prime suspects and eager amateur investigators determined to do The Master proud.

The best part of the story is the way Boucher works both actual Holmes titles/plot points into the story and the ones that Watson only teased readers with; those stories mentioned in passing during the published narratives. Boucher was, without a doubt, a true Holmes aficionado.

The story takes place in 1939, right on the eve of WWII and there's a strong political atmosphere woven throughout. Hollywood in 1939 had a lot of Nazi spy and anti-Nazi activity, and this story takes place on the fringes of that atmosphere. As a result, there are a few anti-Semitic comments throughout the text, but at no point did I ever feel this was editorial opinion on behalf of the author. Any confronting comments are a natural result of the story and the overwhelming attitude of the book is not anti-Semitic.

Most of all, the story is just fun; it's got that great Golden Age vibe to the writing that a reader either likes or not; done well, I love it, and here it's done well. The story doesn't take itself seriously at all, but the plotting does: this is a fair play mystery; the clues are all there for everyone to use and in the end neither I, nor the Baker Street Irregulars, nor the LAPD could see what was right in front of us (although I did guess a plot twist, fat lot of good it did me). But the person who solved it all ... that was almost the very, very best part of the book. Boucher could not have ended it any better in my opinion and once all is revealed, it was clever. as. hell.

In short: I loved it! ( )

Sorry but a bit lame

Did not really take off at all

Yes there were the allusions to Holmes but…

Cannot imagine I would recommend it to anyone unless they were an absolute Sherlock fan and even then…

Big Ship

4 September 2021 ( )

I've never read the Sherlock Holmes stories so why on earth would I read this tale based on the Sherlock oeuvre? Well, because I am always interested in well done books that use classics as a springboard, of course (and also because I am giving it to my Sherlock loving daughter for Christmas and we believe in pre-reading in this family).

Metropolitan Pictures is a well known movie studio about to make Holmes' adventure from The Speckled Band into a movie. However, Stephen Worth, the writer they've contracted to turn the story into a screenplay hates Sherlock Holmes and the group that reveres him. Worth is also a reprehensible human being. Not wanting to alienate Holmes' most devoted (and mostly quite famous in their fields) fans and unable to fire Worth, Maureen O'Breen, who works in PR at the studio, cooks up the idea of asking the group, called The Baker Street Irregulars, to consult on the film, moving all of the men into a house at, you guessed it, 221B Baker Street, and supplying a housekeeper named Mrs. Hudson (and eventually a Sergeant Watson). During a press party with the Irregulars, Worth arrives drunk, picks a fight, and gets knocked out cold. The party quickly breaks up and when Maureen goes upstairs to "powder her nose" before leaving, she witnesses Worth getting shot but doesn't see the murderer. However, when the police investigate, Worth's body is gone and the clues they find in the room are all from Holmes' stories. The game is afoot. In the course of the investigation, which the Irregulars want to solve themselves, each of them then goes on to have an unusual adventure he relays to the rest of the group as they try, rather badly, to uncover the murderer, who might still be among them.

As this takes both aspects of the Holmes canon as well as unwritten stories that are referred to within the stories in its telling, this is probably best read by those who have read and enjoyed the originals. Even without reading them though, I cheerfully followed the mystery most of the way, only getting slightly confused at the very end (like the lieutenant in the story). The stories relayed by each of the characters were bizarre but entertaining enough. I did have some trouble keeping some of the characters separate in my head throughout. One twist of the novel was fairly predictable while a couple of others were definitely surprising, which I appreciated. This is well written and had moments of good humor in it. There is a little bit of timely political commentary as the Anschluss has recently occurred, although the US is still firmly out of any conflict. The bumbling and infighting amongst the Irregulars in the face of murder is entertaining though so fans of Golden Age mysteries will find this a worthwhile read. ( )