Gerard Williams Books In Order

Publication Order of Dr. Mortimer Books

Gerard Williams is a British author and translator best known for his mystery novels. Williams primarily writes stories set in the Sherlock Holmes Universe but with the famous detective barely making an appearance.

+Biography

Who is Gerard Williams? If you have asked that question and found that your search for answers has been in vain, there is a good reason why. There is no real life person called Gerard Williams.

Rather, Gerard Williams is merely the pseudonym used by one Gary Newman. However, even receiving that revelation will do you little good because Gary Newman is as much of a mystery as Gerard Williams.

Unlike the majority of authors you find today who cannot wait to reveal every tiny little secret about their lives, and who spend enormous portions of their time interacting with fans through social media, Gary Newman has chosen to steer clear of such public scrutiny.

Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find any concrete and verifiable information about the author online, though those who know him haven’t reported anything nefarious about the real life individual.

If there is one fact about Gary Newman, or Gerard Williams in this case, that isn’t in dispute, it is the author’s love for the written word. Williams has made language his life’s pursuit, so much so that he has found fulfillment in teaching language, not only at home (North-East England) but beyond the borders of Great Britain.

Williams is also a translator with a notable reputation, though it often comes as a surprise for those who have heard of him to learn that he is also an author.

Ever since Sherlock Holmes first emerged on the scene, it has become the norm to reinvent his myth every few years and decades. Authors new and old cannot help but either retell his most famous mysteries or concoct new ones in order to bring new readers into the fold.

Gerard Williams is part of a more interesting circle of authors; authors who are not as interested in reinventing Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson as they are in expanding his universe, telling stories about the peripheral characters in his life, men and women readers only glimpsed during Sherlock’s tales but who authors like Gerard Williams have given new life outside Sherlock’s orbit.

Some authors will go so far as to craft entirely new characters that just happen to exist in the same world as Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Williams saw fit to take a character that readers had already met in Sherlock Holmes and give him new life as the protagonist of his own story.

+Doctor James Mortimer

Doctor Mortimer stands at the center of Gerard Williams’ works. It should be noted that Gary Newman has written books under his own name that have nothing to do with the world of Sherlock Holmes.

Indeed, it is only under the Gerard Williams Pseudonym that Newman explores his love for the world of Sherlock Holmes. And Doctor Mortimer stands at the center of Williams’ books.

Doctor Mortimer first emerged on the literary scene in ‘The Hound of Baskervilles’, a Sherlock Holmes Classic.

Mortimer was actually Henry Baskerville’s physician. He brought Sherlock to his master’s house and, though his role in that episode was subdued, his presence was such that Sherlock fans will remember him.

Whether Gerard Williams was such a fan of Mortimer that he thought the physician deserved his own leading role in the Sherlock world or he simply had a few mystery plots running around his head and merely used Mortimer as the vehicle through which to explore them, Williams hasn’t really been forthcoming with those answers.

Mortimer also has an assistant in Doctor Violet Branscombe. Violet’s role in Williams’ books is rarely satisfying, though it is easy to see how some people might presume that Williams was trying to recreate the Sherlock/Watson dynamic.

The reception to Gerard Williams’ books is often mixed. Williams has a knack for creating great mysteries. This is the one thing everyone seems to agree on. The plots are intriguing and the mysteries are masterfully created, worthy of the Sherlock/Watson Universe.

However, Williams, according to most readers, primary fails because of how twisted and convoluted his stories and plots can get, often leaving readers unsatisfied once everything wraps up.

None the less, Williams’ books have a decent following, and not all his fans have read Sherlock Holmes, to begin with. This suggests that Williams has succeeded in ensuring that his works are not so strongly beholden to Sherlock Holmes that fans must first catch up on Sherlock Holmes’ earlier tales in order to better understand Doctor Mortimer’s own tales.

+Doctor Mortimer and the Aldgate Mystery

It is 1890. Doctor Mortimer is still mourning his Wife’s death. Numb with grief, the doctor closes his practice down and sets out looking for a new life. His journey leads him to London.

An emergency develops that forces Mortimer to fill in for another doctor. In seeing to his last call of the day, Doctor Mortimer winds up in Aldgate where he meets the captivating Livonia Nancarrow.

The overbearing solicitude of the girl’s guardian leaves Mortimer worried. Mortimer seeks to find out why she is being kept a virtual prisoner. There is a puzzle taking shape, one that involves an impossible murder, a retired Calcutta Merchant plagued by the secrets of his guilt and the frequent visits of a decadent artist to an anarchist Whitechapel café.

With the aid of Doctor Violet Branscombe, Doctor Mortimer seeks to unravel a dark and sinister mystery in Victorian London.

This is a very European book; one must commend Gerard Williams for putting so much detail into his book that his tale seems to leap off the page.

Admittedly, there is almost too much descriptive information; and, with such a slow pace, do not expect this book to keep you on the edge of your seat. However, fans of European classics will enjoy it.

+Doctor Mortimer and the Barking Man Mystery

This sequel in Gerard Williams’ mystery series of novels follows the murder of Russian Politico in Soho. To solve the mystery, Mortimer and Violet must enter the world of high-class prostitution, a protected arena far more dangerous that they could have imagined.

Mortimer intervenes in the case because of the pleas of the murder suspect whose sweetheart Violet owes a debt. While this book is as annoyingly convoluted as every other Gerard Williams book, readers tend to appreciate the way it brings Victorian London to life, from the smells to the sounds and even the scattered smatterings of the enigmatic Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.