Book Review - Thinking Outside the Tin-dispatch Box.

By William R Cochran
2011

I have known 'Bill' Cochran for about 20 years. He is also a  Sherlockian of some repute.
 Member of the BSI since 1988 and a former editor of The Baker Street Journal.

I have listened to many excellent papers by Bill over the years, and held him in such regard as a Sherlockian that I asked him to be the Master of Ceremonies for our first St Charles Sherlock Holmes convention The Games Afloat!

He is co-founder of the Occupants of the Empty House and has edited their newsletter for years. The Occupants are one of the most well regarded Sherlockian societies in the country.

So with this kind of background in the Sherlockian world, one would expect nothing less than a thoroughly researched and thought out book.

And that is exactly what you get. One could say that Bill has been writing this book for about thirty years.
All his papers and presentations have been aiming towards this book for years, whether he realized it or not.
Keeping some of the ideas he presented over that time, and discarding others.

The book manly argues the different man Holmes seems to have become after the 'Great Hiatus'.
Bill notes and explores the personality changes in the master after almost four years away from Baker St.
And you can tell by reading it, that many years of thought and research and personal insights have gone into this book. This is a book that took many years to develop, and in Bills mind, probably is not done yet.

You probably are not going to sit down with this at bed time and read it with a glass of wine by the fireplace.
More than likely you will sit by your computer, ready to research some of his insights,  with a glass of good whiskey and ponder the research and ideas presented in this book. You will not agree with everything in it; you will definitely learn a lot, and you will come away looking at the canon, especially the later writings, in a different light.

And you will definitely come away respecting Bills knowledge as a Sherlockain.
The book can be found at. . .

There are two options for the book.  Option number 1 is to have them contact me (Bill) at murraytheorderly@yahoo.com I have ten books on hand. If they would like aa autographed copy I will send them along right away. $20.00 plus postage($5). Hope this helps.  I have ten books on hand. 

Option Number 2 is they can order them from George at http://www.batteredbox.com/SherlockianScholarshipConventional/ThinkingOutsideTinDispatchBox.htm.  Perhaps this copy would be more valuable as it is unsigned