A Study in Lavender

With all the slash fanfic the various iterations of Sherlock Holmes inspire, I'm surprised it took so long for a collection of them to be properly published. But I just read a friend's copy of A Study in Lavender and found it delightful. Nothing explicit in any of the stories, they're all mostly variations on "Holmes is brought a case by someone who turns out to be gay/lesbian and the case relates to a relationship of theirs." Sometimes Holmes, Watson, and/or Lestrade etc. are themselves gay, other times they're just sympathetic/open-minded, which doesn't feel out of character for an eccentric like Holmes or a doctor like Watson, whom ACD himself would presumably give his own views on homosexuality as a psycho-medical condition, not a criminal offense. While offensive today, it was the more progressive stance to take in the 19th century. Everyone clearly did their research on late-Victorian gay culture (or at least, has found all the research I have on the subject, so it meshes with what I know!) so none of them felt anachronistic. It really made me wish ACD had tried his hand at one or two stories involving gay clients just to be able to compare, but this collection is a fine substitute.

Purely as a short story collection, it's probably one of the best I've ever read in that I enjoyed all of the stories, none of them fell flat for me. Not to say they're all perfect, but they all kept me turning the pages and not skipping ahead to the next one.