The Last Sherlock Holmes Story

Novel by Michael Dibdin

0-224-01578-8

The Last Sherlock Holmes Story is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Michael Dibdin. The novel is an account of Holmes's attempt to solve the Jack the Ripper murders.

Plot

In Victorian-era London, noted detective Sherlock Holmes attempts to solve the murder of prostitutes by the serial killer Jack the Ripper. He suspects the Ripper to be his nemesis, James Moriarty.^[1] In a twist ending, it is revealed that Holmes himself invented the character of Moriarty due to insanity and was himself committing the crimes. There is also an ambiguity to the revelation as a despairing Holmes tries to explain to his companion John Watson that Moriarty has fooled Watson and framed Holmes.^[2]^[3]

References

^ The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Dibdin
^ The Last Sherlock Holmes Story review at goodreads
^ The Last Sherlock Holmes Story review at epinions

Jack the Ripper in fiction

Seminal works

The Lodger
Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution

Letters

"Dear Boss" letter
"From Hell" letter
"Saucy Jacky" postcard

Film

Waxworks (1924)
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
Pandora's Box (1929)
The Lodger (1932)
The Lodger (1944)
Room to Let (1950)
Man in the Attic (1953)
Jack the Ripper (1959)
Lulu (1962)
A Study in Terror (1965)
Hands of the Ripper (1971)
Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971)
The Ruling Class (1972)
What the Swedish Butler Saw (1975)
Jack the Ripper (1976)
Murder by Decree (1979)
Time After Time (1979)
Jack's Back (1988)
Edge of Sanity (1989)
Deadly Advice (1994)
Ripper (2001)
From Hell (2001)
Bad Karma (2002)
Case Closed: The Phantom of Baker Street (2002)
Ripper 2: Letter from Within (2004)
The Lodger (2009)
Holmes & Watson. Madrid Days (2012)
Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (2018)

Parody

Bizarre, Bizarre (1937)
The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town (1976)
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)

Music

"Jack the Ripper" (1963)
"The Ripper" (1976)
"Killer on the Loose" (1980)
The Somatic Defilement (2007)
Jack the Ripper vs. Hannibal Lecter (2014)

Stage

Earth Spirit (1895 play)
Pandora's Box (1904 play)
Lulu (1937 opera)
The Lodger (1960 opera)
The Ruling Class (1968 play)

Comics

Blood of the Innocent (1985)
Gotham by Gaslight (1989)
From Hell (1989–98)
Wonder Woman: Amazonia (1997)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century (2009)

Literature

Sherlock Holmes	The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978) The Whitechapel Horrors (1992) Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography (2005) Dust and Shadow (2009) The Ripper Legacy (2016)
Short stories	"A Toy for Juliette" (1967) "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World" (1967)
Other	A Feast Unknown (1969) Time After Time (1979) Night of the Ripper (1984) Phantom Blood (1987) Naomi's Room (1991) Anno Dracula (1992) A Night in the Lonesome October (1993) Jack the Ripper, Light-Hearted Friend (1996) Matrix (1998) Lost (2001) Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed (2002) Blood and Fog (2003) The Witches of Chiswick (2003) Broken (2006) Darkside (2007) Lifeblood (2007) Dracula the Un-dead (2009) I, Ripper (2015) The Cutthroat (2017)

Television

Series	Jack the Ripper (1973) Jack the Ripper (1988) Sanctuary (2007–11) Whitechapel (2009–13) Ripper Street (2012–17) Time After Time (2017) Case File nº221: Kabukicho (2019–20) Sherlock in Russia (2020) Beforeigners (2019–present)
Episodes	"Wolf in the Fold" (1967) "Comes the Inquisitor" (1995) "Ripper" (1999) "Sanctuary for All" (2008)
Other	Bridge Across Time (1985 TV film)

Video games

Jack the Ripper (1987)
The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes (1992)
Ripper (1996)
Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (1999)
Shadow Man (1999)
MediEvil 2 (2000)
Jack the Ripper (2004)
Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack the Ripper (2009)
The Ripper (canceled)
The Order: 1886 (2015)
Assassin's Creed Syndicate: Jack the Ripper (2015)
Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey (2019)

Other

Casebook: Jack the Ripper
Blood!: The Life and Future Times of Jack the Ripper

Category

Literary pastiches of Sherlock Holmes

The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
by Adrian Conan Doyle
and John Dickson Carr

"The Adventure of the Seven Clocks" (1952)
"The Adventure of the Gold Hunter" (1953)
"The Adventure of the Wax Gamblers" (1953)
"The Adventure of the Highgate Miracle" (1953)
"The Adventure of the Black Baronet" (1953)
"The Adventure of the Sealed Room" (1953)
"The Adventure of Foulkes Rath" (1953)
"The Adventure of the Abbas Ruby" (1953)
"The Adventure of the Dark Angels" (1953)
"The Adventure of the Two Women" (1953)
"The Adventure of the Deptford Horror" (1953)
"The Adventure of the Red Widow" (1953)

by Nicholas Meyer

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974)
The West End Horror (1976)
The Canary Trainer (1993)
The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols (2019)
The Return of the Pharaoh (2021)

by Loren D. Estleman

Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula (1978)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes (1979)
The Perils of Sherlock Holmes (2012)

by Michael Hardwick

The Prisoner of the Devil (1979)
The Revenge of the Hound (1987)

by David Stuart Davies

Sherlock Holmes and the Hentzau Affair (1991)
The Tangled Skein (1995)
The Scroll of the Dead (1998)
Shadow of the Rat (1999)
The Veiled Detective (2004)
The Devil's Promise (2014)
The Ripper Legacy (2016)

by Barrie Roberts

Sherlock Holmes and the Railway Maniac (1994)
Sherlock Holmes and the Man from Hell (1997)

Mary Russell series
by Laurie R. King

The Beekeeper's Apprentice (1994)
A Monstrous Regiment of Women (1995)
A Letter of Mary (1997)
The Moor (1998)
O Jerusalem (1999)
Justice Hall (2002)
The Game (2004)
Locked Rooms (2005)
The Language of Bees (2009)
The God of the Hive (2010)
Pirate King (2011)
Garment of Shadows (2012)
Dreaming Spies (2015)
The Murder of Mary Russell (2016)
Island of the Mad (2018)

by Donald Serrell Thomas

The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes (1997)
Sherlock Holmes and the Running Noose (2001)
The Execution of Sherlock Holmes (2007)
Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil (2009)
Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly (2010)
The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes (2012)
Death on a Pale Horse: Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service (2013)

by Lyndsay Faye

Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson (2009)
The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes (2017)

Young Sherlock Holmes
by Andy Lane

Death Cloud (2010)
Red Leech (2010)
Black Ice (2011)
Fire Storm (2011)
Snake Bite (2012)
Knife Edge (2013)
Stone Cold (2014)
Night Break (2015)

by Guy Adams

The Breath of God (2011)
The Army of Dr. Moreau (2012)

by Anthony Horowitz

The House of Silk (2011)
Moriarty (2014)

by Kim Newman

Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles (2011)
The Man From The Diogenes Club (2017)

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
and Anna Waterhouse

Mycroft Holmes (2015)
Mycroft and Sherlock (2018)
Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage (2019)

by James Lovegrove

The Stuff of Nightmares (2013)
Gods of War (2014)
The Thinking Engine (2015)
The Labyrinth of Death (2017)
The Devil's Dust (2018)
Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows (2016)
Sherlock Holmes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities (2017)
Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils (2018)
Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon (2019)
Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons (2020)
Sherlock Holmes & The Three Winter Terrors (2021)
Sherlock Holmes & The Highgate Horrors (2023)

by Cavan Scott

Sherlock Holmes: The Patchwork Devil (2016)
Sherlock Holmes: Cry of the Innocents (2017)

The Lady Sherlock Series
by Sherry Thomas

A Study in Scarlet Women (2016)
A Conspiracy in Belgravia (2017)
The Hollow of Fear (2018)

Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota
by Larry Millett

Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon (1996)
Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders (1998)
Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery (1999)
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance (2001)
The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes (2012)
Sherlock Holmes and the Eisendorf Enigma (2017)

Other works

Novels	The Pursuit of the House-Boat (1897) A Double Barrelled Detective Story (1902) Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes (1908) Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (1962) The Ultimate Crime (1976) The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978) The Whitechapel Horrors (1992) All-Consuming Fire (1994) The Strange Case of Mrs. Hudson's Cat (1997) The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (1999) Shadows Over Baker Street (2003) The Final Solution (2004) A Slight Trick of the Mind (2005) The Italian Secretary (2005) Erasing Sherlock (2006) Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography (2006) Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong (2007) The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls (2008) Dead Man's Land (2013) The Albino's Treasure (2015) Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell (2016) The Counterfeit Detective (2017)
Short stories	"The Doctor's Case" (1987) "A Study in Emerald" (2003)
Novel series	The Enola Holmes Mysteries (2006–10) The Boy Sherlock Holmes (2007–12) Gaslight series (2008–18)

Parody

The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes (1944)
The Fossil Island (1951)
The Adventure of the Peerless Peer (1974)
Everybody's Favorite Duck (1988)
Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries (2011–2013)
Sherlock Bones (2011–2012)
Solar Pons
Stoker and Holmes (2013–2017)

v t e Novels by Michael Dibdin
Aurelio Zen series	Ratking (1988) Vendetta (1990) Cabal (1992) Dead Lagoon (1994) Cosi Fan Tutti (1996) A Long Finish (1998) Blood Rain (1999) And Then You Die (2002) Medusa (2003) Back to Bologna (2005) End Games (2007) Television series (2011)
Other novels	The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978) A Rich Full Death (1986) The Tryst (1989) Dirty Tricks (1991) The Dying of the Light (1993) Dark Spectre (1995) Thanksgiving (2000)