The year has started well for our detective hero. Columbia Pictures have announced that a new Holmes film will go into production soon. In January, BBC gave us Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes, a drama which gave us Conan Doyle and Dr Joseph Bell as a kind of embryonic Watson and Holmes. You can read about both projects in this issue...

Contents

1. I HEAR OF SHERLOCK EVERYWHERE 
   The news and views column
2. HOLMES OFF THE CUFF John Hall considers the Holmes brothers is his regular look at the life and character of the great detective
3. UNDER THE GASLIGHT 
   Roger Forsdyke investigates the reality of the Whitechapel murders in his Victorian crime and criminals column
4. SHERLOCK - THE LATER YEARS 
   David Stuart Davies looks at Granada Television’s production of The Last Vampyre
5. SCARLET THREADS 
   Gaynor Coules gets clued up on Margaret Yorke, last year’s recipient of the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger
6. THE OTHER DETECTIVES 
   Douglas Wynn gets to grips with Lew Archer, the Californian private eye who appeared in no less than 18 novels and two collections of short stories between 1949 and 76
7. SHERLOCK KICKS ASS! 
   Bert Colues talks to Michale Valle, writer of the forthcoming movie Sherlock Holmes and Vengeance of Dracula
8. THE 1999 SHERLOCK AWARDS 
   Mike Ripley announces the winners, including Best Detective, which went to Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse
9. THE AGATHA CHRISTIE MYSTERY - SOLVED 
   Sarah Neville considers a revealing biography
10. CANONICAL INTRODUCTIONS 
    The Empty House
11. SHERLOCK STATESIDE 
    Pat Ward with the latest from America
12. TELLY ’TECS 
    Toby Farnshaw on Joseph Bell
13. THE INTERVIEW 
    David Pirie, the creator of the BBC’s recent Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes, talks to SHERLOCK magazine
14. SLEUTHING THE SHELVES 
    The review section
15. CLASH OF THE TITANS 
    Paul M Chapman concludes his series on Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper
16. GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER 
    Mike Ripley considers the notion ’Crimes Done, Crimes Foretold’ as he looks back over the 600-odd crime novels published last year, and the novels to come in the new year
17. SOCIETIES FORUM 
    Conducted by Roger Johnson with The Friends of the Sherlock Holmes COllection illuminated by Lomax
18. HOLMES OF THE MOVIES 
    Part two of David Stuart Davies review of the last hundred years of Sherlock Holmes at the movies
19. MORIARTY’S MUTTERINGS