Sherlock Holmes and the Sixty Steps

By: Séamas Duffy

Narrated by: Michael Langan

Séamas Duffy’s fourth novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Sixty Steps, follows a similar format to his previously published Holmes collections: a novella together with some shorter stories. The four stories are: “The Tragedy of Langhorne Wyke” (1890); “The Mystery of the Thirteen Bells” (1895); “The Adventure of the Sixty Steps” (1897); and “The Problem of the Coptic Patriarchs” (1898).

“The Tragedy of Langhorne Wyke” sees the detective and his chronicler travel to Yorkshire's North Riding to solve the double murder of a well-heeled but mysterious couple. Holmes and Watson are immediately confronted with the sudden, and ominous, disappearance of the two witnesses to the murder—an elderly widow and her traveling companion. The trail eventually leads back to London and to crimes committed, but unavenged, from Holmes’s past.

In “The Mystery of the Thirteen Bells”, Holmes and Watson, along with Inspector Lestrade, are involved in a grisly treasure hunt of a murder. In a London mired in thick November fog, their footsteps are dogged by a silent unseen adversary as they follow a series of cryptograms which they must decipher. These macabre clues lead them to some of Victorian London’s queerest places, and to one of its most bizarre institutions (which Holmes describes as “a citadel of the mad and the dead”).

In “The Adventure of the Sixty Steps”, Holmes and Watson travel to Glasgow in an attempt to save an innocent man—who has been wrongly convicted of the brutal murder of a rich elderly spinster—from the gallows. Their peregrinations take them into some of the lowest quarters of the city, peopled by shady underworld characters such as “The Moudie”, “Cauld Kale”, and “The Acrobat”. In uncovering a web of police corruption and malpractice, they are perplexed by the enigmatic genealogy of the victim and encounter more than one miscarriage of justice.

“The Problem of the Coptic Patriarchs” (a reference to one of Holmes's unrecorded cases from the canonical “The Adventure of the Retired Colourman”), Inspector Lestrade of the Yard arrives at Baker Street to inform Holmes that the rare and priceless 10th-century Alexandrian Scroll has been stolen and Father Philoxenus of the London Coptic Patriarchate has been kidnapped and ransomed. Holmes and Watson travel to the sleepy Thameside village of Bourne End to unravel the mystery of how the burglar-cum-kidnapper managed to escape from the scene of the crime in the middle of a blizzard without leaving a single trace in the snow.

©2022 Seamus Duffy (P)2025 MX Publishing

A most entertaining listen

These were an interesting set of tales. The author had a good feel for Holmesian storytelling, and I genuinely had fun listening.

Of course, listening is a different experience from reading. I am sometimes made aware of odd or unusual vocabulary choices because I hear them. For example, the author used “deposed” intransitively a great deal. While this is certainly legitimate, it sounds odd, as common usage is strictly transitive.

The reader did a great job, though I sometimes struggled to differentiate Holmes and Lestrade. Still and all, it appears there were not any serious mispronunciations.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this audio book if you need a Holmesian fix.

Between The Steps

Sherlock Homes and Doctor Watson have a variety of adventures of various lengths and even run into old clients in wrong places. Very enjoyable, loved them.

Very good, very Holmes

Liked the plots, the portrayal of Holmes and of the relationship with Watson. Look forward for more from the author.

Imperfect but very good collection of Holmes stories

I have heard or read several less than satisfying attempts to create a sequel to "The Hound of the Baskervilles." This collection begins with its own sequel that starts out promising but peters out to a conclusion that was not unforeseen. A true sequel to perhaps Doyle's greatest work is deserving of a lengthy, well-thought outlook, not the formulaic and almost worn out short story presented in this recording. However, once I got past the Houynd story, the rest of the book was very good. The bulk of it was taken up by the titular "Sixty Steps," a close to excellent story.

A New Collection of Stories

This book contained 4 stories and the Title Story. I found the Stories well written and with referrals to previous Stories actually written by Sir Conan Doyle. Si.e of the Stories are almost a continuation of "The Hounds if the Baskerville" and such. Narrator does a good job with the various characters voices and Storyline.