In new novel 'Mrs. Hudson and the Wild West,' housekeeper of Sherlock Holmes rides again

Sherlock Holmes survived his plunge into the Reichenbach Falls. He even survived the death of his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle.

Dozens of writers, from Nicholas Meyer ("The Seven Percent Solution")  to Laurie R. King ("The Beekeeper's Apprentice") to Anthony Horowitz ("The House of Silk") have continued the chronicles of the world's first and foremost private consulting detective.

Now Barry S. Brown enters the fray with "Mrs. Hudson and the Wild West," the seventh in his "Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street" series.

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It was Brown who made a startling discovery: Mrs.Hudson — ostensibly the housekeeper at Holmes' apartment at 221-B Baker St. — was really the brains of the operation.

Mrs. Hudson, who has no lines of dialogue in Conan Doyle's stories, or even a first name, learned criminology, it seems, from her dear late husband Tobias, a London bobby. Together, they practiced solving cases from the police reports in the Evening Standard and other London papers.

Stodgy, patriarchal Victorian society would never have accepted a lady detective. So, she hired Holmes and Watson as fronts.

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They're not total dolts. Holmes, rather a ham actor, is useful with impersonations and disguises, and they go out and do the legwork, kind of like Archie Godwin did in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories. But it's Mrs. Hudson, Cockney accent and all, who handles the trickier interviews, and she's the one who cracks the mystery.

In "Mrs. Hudson and the Wild West," the firm is approached by none other than Buffalo Bill Cody. Just before the grand opening of his Wild West Show in London, Cody's prized palomino, Duke, is kidnapped — or rather, horsenapped.

It takes Mrs. Hudson & Co. less than a chapter to recover Duke. (Brown writes rather long chapters.) But that case plunges them into a complex murder investigation involving feuding farmers, two pairs of star-crossed lovers and a pair of lovable delinquents who could have wandered in from "Huckleberry Finn."

For those who love steampunk, Gilbert and Sullivan and quaint English villages where they're dropping like flies, "Mrs. Hudson and the Wild West" should make ideal summer reading.

Brown's novels have grown steadily better as the series has progressed. He's perfected a version of Doyle's quasi-Victorian narration that doesn't tax modern readers. Light, swift and with underlying humor, they make one long to huzzah and call, "God Save the Queen!"

BOOK REVIEW

'MRS. HUDSON AND THE WILD WEST'

By Barry S. Brown

MZ Publishing, $14.95 paperback

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Mystery novel 'Mrs. Hudson and the Wild West' revives Sherlock Holmes