What would happen if you asked eighteen top writers who don't normally write about Sherlock Holmes to write about Sherlock Holmes? What if you wrote to them, saying:

In 19th century England, a new kind of hero--a consulting detective--blossomed in the mind of an underemployed doctor and ignited the world's imagination. In the thirteen decades since A Study in Scarlet first appeared, countless variations on that theme have been played, from Mary Russell to Greg House, from 'Basil of Baker Street' to the new BBC Holmes-in-the-internet-age.

We suspect that you have in the back of your mind a story that plays a variation on the Holmes theme...

And what if these great writers read that proposal and decided that yes, they did have that kind of tale in the back of their minds?

The result is A Study in Sherlock, Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon, with stories by Alan Bradley, Tony Broadbent, Jan Burke, Lionel Chetwynd, Lee Child, Colin Cotterill, Neil Gaiman, Laura Lippman, Gayle Lynds and John Sheldon, Phillip and Jerry Margolin, Margaret Maron, Thomas Perry, S.J. Rozan, Dana Stabenow, Charles Todd, and Jacqueline Winspear.