About the Book
In a sensational follow-up to Echoes of Sherlock Holmes and In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, a brand-new anthology of stories inspired by the Arthur Conan Doyle canon
For the Sake of the Game is the latest volume in the award-winning series from New York Times bestselling editors Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger, with stories of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and friends in a variety of eras and forms. King and Klinger have a simple formula: ask some of the world's greatest writers―regardless of genre―to be inspired by the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle.
The results are surprising and joyous. Some tales are pastiches, featuring the recognizable figures of Holmes and Watson; others step away in time or place to describe characters and stories influenced by the Holmes world. Some of the authors spin whimsical tales of fancy; others tell hardcore thrillers or puzzling mysteries. One beloved author writes a song; two others craft a melancholy tale of insectoid analysis.
This is not a volume for listeners who crave a steady diet of stories about Holmes and Watson on Baker Street. Rather, it is for the generations of people who were themselves inspired by the classic tales, and who are prepared to let their imaginations roam freely.
Features stories by Peter S. Beagle, Rhys Bowen, Reed Farrel Coleman, Jamie Freveletti, Alan Gordon, Gregg Hurwitz, Toni L. P. Kelner, William Kotzwinkle and Joe Servello, Harley Jane Kozak, D. P. Lyle, Weston Ochse, Zoe Sharp, Duane Swierczynski, and F. Paul Wilson
About the Author :
Laurie R. King is the Edgar Award-winning author of the Kate Martinelli novels and the acclaimed Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mysteries, as well as a few stand-alone novels. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, the first in her Mary Russell series, was nominated for an Agatha Award and was named one of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. A Monstrous Regiment of Women won the Nero Wolfe Award. She has degrees in theology, and besides writing she has also managed a coffee store and raised children, vegetables, and the occasional building. She lives in northern California. Laurie R. King is the Edgar Award-winning author of the Kate Martinelli novels and the acclaimed Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mysteries, as well as a few stand-alone novels. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, the first in her Mary Russell series, was nominated for an Agatha Award and was named one of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. A Monstrous Regiment of Women won the Nero Wolfe Award. She has degrees in theology, and besides writing she has also managed a coffee store and raised children, vegetables, and the occasional building. She lives in northern California. Leslie S. Klinger is one of the world's foremost authorities on Sherlock Holmes. He is the editor of the three-volume set The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. The first two volumes, The Complete Short Stories, won the Edgar for Best Critical/Biographical work. His New Annotated Frankenstein was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. Klinger is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars and lives in Malibu.
Leslie S. Klinger is one of the world's foremost authorities on Sherlock Holmes. He is the editor of the three-volume set The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. The first two volumes, The Complete Short Stories, won the Edgar for Best Critical/Biographical work. His New Annotated Frankenstein was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. Klinger is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars and lives in Malibu.
Peter S. Beagle has won the Hugo, Nebula, Mythopoeic, and Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire awards. He is also the recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Honor. His novel The Last Unicorn has sold a reported five million copies since its initial publication. His other novels include A Fine & Private Place, The Innkeeper's Song, Tamsin, Summerlong, and In Calabria. His short fiction has been collected in four volumes by Tachyon Publications, including The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, The Line Between, We Never Talk About My Brother, and Sleight of Hand.
F. Paul Wilson is the New York Times bestselling author of horror, adventure, medical thrillers, science fiction, and virtually everything in between. His books include the Repairman Jack novels--including Ground Zero, The Tomb, and Fatal Error--the Adversary cycle--including The Keep--and a young adult series featuring the teenage Jack. Wilson has won the Prometheus Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Inkpot Award from the San Diego ComiCon, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers of America, among other honors. He lives in Wall, New Jersey. Harley Jane Kozak is an actress whose screen credits include Parenthood, When Harry Met Sally, The Favor, and Arachnophobia. She lives with her family in Southern California.
Alan Gordon, LCSW, is the Founder and Director of the Pain Psychology Center where he oversees a team of 25 therapists. Alan developed Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), a cutting-edge protocol for treating chronic pain, and just completed a groundbreaking neuroimaging study on the efficacy of PRT in conjunction with the University of Colorado Boulder. He was featured on CBS's The Doctors, where he conducted the first fMRI case study of a patient eliminating chronic pain. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at USC and has presented on the topic of pain treatment at conferences and trainings throughout the country.
Alon Ziv has a degree in Neuroscience and was awarded the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching in Biology from UCLA. He is the author of Breeding Between the Lines: Why Interracial People Are Healthier and More Attractive and has appeared on the BBC London Evening News, NPR, BBC Radio, and local radio across the United States. Alon co-founded PrepU, an adaptive learning system for the sciences that has been used by college students over 1 billion times. Rhys Bowen is the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels, including The Victory Garden, The Tuscan Child, and the World War II-based In Farleigh Field, the winner of the Left Coast Crime Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel and the Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel. Bowen's work has won twenty honors to date, including multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. Her books have been translated into many languages, and she has fans around the world, including seventeen thousand Facebook followers. A transplanted Brit, Bowen divides her time between California and Arizona. To learn more about the author, visit www.rhysbowen.com.
Reed Farrel Coleman is a New York Times bestselling author whose works have won Macavity, Barry, Anthony, and Shamus awards.
Toni L. P. Kelner writes the Family Skeleton Mysteries as Leigh Perry and, under her own name, is the author of the "Where Are They Now?" Mysteries and the Laura Fleming mystery series. She has won an Agatha Award and a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, and has been nominated multiple times for the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Derringer awards. William Kotzwinkle has sold over ten million books. Two-time winner of the National Magazine Award for Fiction, he came to prominence with his cult classic The Fan Man. His novel Dr. Rat won the World Fantasy Award, and his children's series Walter the Farting Dog sold two million copies. Movie credits include Book of Love and Nightmare on Elm Street 4. He also wrote the narration for Michael Jackson's E.T. record, which won a special children's Grammy. His books have been praised by such diverse luminaries as T. C. Boyle, Stephen King, Joanna Lumley, Ian McEwan, Terry Pratchett, Ram Dass, and Kurt Vonnegut. He divides his time between rural Arizona and the coast of Maine.
D. P. Lyle, MD, is the award-winning author of many nonfiction books and works of fiction. He is the cohost of Crime and Science Radio, and has worked as a forensics consultant with the writers of popular television shows such as Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Monk, Judging Amy, House, and Pretty Little Liars. Weston Ochse (1965-2023) won the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel with Scarecrow Gods and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for Appalachian Galapagos. He is a retired Army intelligence officer and works for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Jamie Freveletti is the internationally bestselling and ITW- and Barry Award-winning author of thrillers Dead Asleep, Running from the Devil, Running Dark, and The Ninth Day. A trial attorney with a diploma in international studies, she is an avid distance runner and holds a black belt in Aikido, a Japanese martial art. She lives in Chicago with her family. Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven New York Times bestselling novels and is perhaps best known for his Jason Bourne series. He passed away in 2001. Duane Swierczynski is the Edgar-nominated author of nine novels including Canary, Severance Package, and the Shamus Award-winning Charlie Hardie series (Fun and Games, Hell and Gone, Point and Shoot). He's written over 250 comics for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Valiant and IDW, including The Black Hood, the first comic for Archie's Dark Circle imprint. Swierczynski has also collaborated with CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker on the bestselling Level 26 series. He lives in Burbank with his wife and children. Zoë Sharp is a neuro-diverse autodidact who opted out of mainstream education at the age of twelve and wrote her first novel at fifteen. She created her award-winning crime thrillers featuring ex-Special Forces trainee turned bodyguard, Charlotte 'Charlie' Fox, after receiving death threats in the course of her work as a photojournalist. She began making a living from writing in 1988, and since 2001 has penned various novels such as the long-running Charlie Fox series (including a prequel novella), the Blake & Byron mystery series, the McColl & Weston psychological thrillers set in the English Lake District, standalone crime novels, and collaborations with espionage thriller author John Lawton, as well as numerous highly acclaimed short stories. Her work has been used in school textbooks in Denmark, inspired an original song and music video, and been optioned for TV and film. www.ZoeSharp.com
Read by Grover Gardner, Simon Vance, Derek Perkins, Julie McKay, James Langton, Marisa Calin, Ralph Lister, Suzanne Elise Freeman, James Patrick Cronin, Andrew Eiden, Scott Brick, Emily Sutton-Smith, Keith Szarabajka, and Justine Eyre
Simon Vance, a former BBC Radio presenter and newsreader, is a full-time actor who has appeared on both stage and television. He has recorded over eight hundred audiobooks and has earned fifty-seven Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, including one for his narration of Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini. A multiple Audie finalist, Simon has won Audie Awards for The King's Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan, and The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Winner of the 2008 Booklist Voice of Choice Award, Simon has also been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009. A native of the United Kingdom, Audie and AudioFile Earphones Award winner Derek Perkins's audiobook narration skills are augmented by a knowledge of three foreign languages and a facility with accents. He has narrated numerous titles in a wide range of fiction and nonfiction genres. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA. Julie McKay is a voice talent and audiobook narrator. She has a degree in music and a background in classical theater. As an actor, she has worked at Shakespeare festivals and regional theaters across the country as well as off-Broadway in New York.
James Langton trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. James was born in York, England and now lives in New York City. Marisa Calin is an actress, novelist, and multiple Earphones Award-winning narrator born in England and educated in New York at the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts. An artist with a flair for everything literary, she has written a young adult novel, You & Me, which received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews.
Ralph Lister is an experienced actor and voice artist who trained at LAMDA. He spent fifteen years in mainstage theatre in London, Madrid, Hong Kong, and Edinburgh before moving to America, where he focuses on film, television, and audiobook narration. Suzanne Elise Freeman inherited her love of storytelling from her father and her passion for reading from her mother. She works as a professional actor in projects ranging from television and movies to classic literature. A narrator of over sixty audiobooks, she won an Earphones Award in 2016 along with the rest of the all-star cast of Tim Murphy's Christadora. Born and raised in Minnesota, she now makes her home in Los Angeles. James Patrick Cronin began his audiobook career at twelve years of age opposite Christopher Lloyd in the book-on-tape of The Pagemaster. A classically trained stage actor with an MFA from the University of Louisville and a degree in philosophy, James has spent his years since college performing as an actor and a comedian on stages all over the world. He has performed everything from the classics to original material in Ireland, Scotland, Serbia, and Israel, as well as throughout the US. He has recorded over 100 audiobooks across an extensive range of genres. Andrew Eiden is an audiobook narrator who came from a long line of theater folk and has been acting since the age of four. He has starred in dozens of commercials as well as multiple television shows. At the age of eleven, he won first place in a local drama festival, which jumpstarted his acting career. He has performed in theaters ranging from the Glendale Center Theater to the Pasadena Playhouse. Scott Brick is a renowned actor, screenwriter, and audiobook narrator. Born in Santa Barbara, he studied acting and writing at UCLA. He began narrating audiobooks in 2000 and has since narrated over 600 titles. He has earned several accolades for his narrating talents, including two Audie Awards. Emily Sutton-Smith is a professional actress and one of the cofounders of an Equity theater in central Michigan. Her stage credits include Out of Orbit; Doublewide; Summer Retreat; Too Much, Too Much, Too Many; Miracle on South Division Street; End Days; The Usual: A Musical Love Story; The Smell of the Kill; The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds; Maidens, Mothers and Crones; and Additional Particulars. A New York City native, she has worked onstage at almost all the Equity theaters in Michigan, including the Williamston Theatre, the Purple Rose Theatre, Performance Network Theatre, Tipping Point Theatre, the Detroit Rep, the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, and MeadowBrook Theatre. Emily is a proud member of the Actors' Equity Association and SAG/AFTRA. Her film and TV credits include The Funeral Guest, Gifted Hands, Butterfly Effect: Revelation, The Prince of Motor City, and Nevermore. Emily studied acting at the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York City, and holds a Grande Diploma in Pastry Arts from the French Culinary Institute. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Michigan State University. Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins's Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.
Justine Eyre has turned her passion for reading and remarkable facility with accents into her dream career. This classically trained, multilingual actress has narrated well over 400 audiobooks and has been honored to receive a coveted Audie Award and multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards. Appearing in leading roles onstage in King Lear and The Crucible, she has also graced the screen in Two and Half Men and Mad Men amongst her many television credits.
Review :
"Entertaining...This volume contains something for every fan of the Baker Street sleuth."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
"King and Klinger have commissioned fourteen new stories that make up their wildest, weirdest crop yet."
-- "Kirkus Reviews"
"Laurie R. King and Leslie Klinger continue to breathe new life into Sherlockian tales."
-- "Literary Hub"
"This energetic and offbeat anthology of Sherlock Holmes-inspired works charmingly leans into twenty-first-century fandom. The fourteen unique entries include cozy and noir mysteries, with the occasional speculative twist, and a short graphic novel and a song."
-- "School Library Journal"
