Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective: The Impact & Influence of a Literary Icon

From one of England's most esteemed novelists, an utter astonishment that captures an era through one life celebrated internationally and another entirely forgotten. In the vast expanse of late-Victorian Britain, two boys come to life: George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, in shabby genteel Edinburgh, both of them feeling at once near to and impossibly distant from the beating heart of Empire. One falls prey to a series of pranks en route to a legal vocation, while the other studies medicine before discovering a different calling entirely, and it is years before their destinies are entwined in a mesmerizing alliance. We follow each through outrageous accusation and unrivaled success, through faith and perseverance and dogged self-recrimination, whether in the dock awaiting complete disgrace or at the height of fame while desperately in love with a woman not his wife, and gradually realize that George is half-Indian and that Arthur becomes the creator of the world's most famous detective. Ranging from London clubs to teeming prisons, from a lost century to the modern age, this novel is a panoramic revelation of things we thought we knew or else had no clue of, as well as a gripping exploration of what goals drive us toward whatever lies in wait - an experience resounding with issues, no less relevant today, of crime and spirituality; of identity and nationality; of what we think, what we believe and what we can prove. Intriguing, relentless and, most of all, moving, Arthur and George richly extends the reach and achievement of a novelist described by the Philadelphia Inquirer as "a dazzling mind in mercurial flight."

When Alan Lambert is sentenced to hang for the murder of an opera star in 1879 Edinburgh, his brother, believing in his innocence, appeals to celebrated anatomy professor Dr. Bell to crack the case and identify the true killer.

"It is to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes."-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to his mentor, renowned forensic scientist Dr. Joseph Bell As a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle, famously studied under the pioneering forensic detective Dr. Joseph Bell. Taking this as a starting point, author David Pirie has woven a compelling thriller which partners Bell (widely believed to be the model for Sherlock Holmes himself) and Doyle as innovators in criminal investigation, exploring the strange underworld of violence and sexual hypocrisy running below the surface of the Victorian era. When the impoverished young Arthur Doyle opens his first medical practice, he is puzzled by the symptoms presented by Heather Grace, a sweet young woman whose parents have died tragically several years before. Heather has a strange eye complaint, but is also upset by visions of a phantom bicyclist who vanishes as soon as he is followed. This enigma, however, is soon overshadowed as Doyle finds himself embroiled in more threatening events-including the murder of a rich Spanish businessman-that call for the advice of the eminent Dr Bell. But despite coming to Doyle's aid, Dr Bell dismisses the murder of Senor Garcia as a rather unimportant diversion from the incident which Bell considers to have real criminal implications: the matter of the patient's eyes and the solitary cyclist. David Pirie gained rave reviews for his screenplay depicting the "real" Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Joseph Bell, in the two part, Edgar-nominated TV series "Murder Rooms." Treading that same critically acclaimed ground, The Patient's Eyes is the first in a stand-alone cycle of novels written from Doyle's point of view that include a whole new perspective on the adventures of Bell and Doyle and the genesis of the best-known detective in all of mystery literature. Tense and dramatic The Patient's Eyes marks the debut of a brilliant new crime novelist.

As a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle-the creator of Sherlock Holmes-studied under one of the pioneers in forensic medicine, Dr. Joseph Bell. While details of Doyle’s actual relationship with the Doctor remain shrouded in mystery, author David Pirie has created an engrossing series that pairs the two as partners in criminal investigations in the dark underworlds of Victorian Edinburgh. The Night Callschronicles their most frightening and disturbing case, the encounter with the man who prefigures Holmes’ archnemesis Moriarty. A series of bizarre and outlandish assaults on women in the brothels of Edinburgh has caught the attention of Bell, who calls on Doyle to assist in the investigation. At the same time, however, there’s a violent struggle for women's educational rights taking place at the university's medical school where Doyle is a student. There he meets young Elsbeth Scott, a fellow student with an unfortunate list of enemies, among them a crazed misogynist student name Crawford, and the smiling hypocritical patron of the university, Henry Carlisle. Bell slowly begins to realize that the increasingly freakish crimes indicate a heretofore unknown and terrifying kind of criminal, one who is not susceptible to the Doctor's old methods.The Night Calls takes them from the evil heart of old Edinburgh into what Bell calls their fight against the future and to London itself, where Doyle again faces a villain with terrifying results.

In a literary tour de force worthy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, author David Pirie brings his rich familiarity with both the Doyle biography and the Sherlock Holmes canon to a mystifying Victorian tale of vengeance and villainy. The howling man on the heath, a gothic asylum, the walking dead, the legendary witch of Dunwich-perils lurk in every turn of the page throughout this ingenious pastiche, as increasingly bizarre encounters challenge the deductive powers of young Doyle and his mentor, the pioneering criminal investigator Dr. Joseph Bell.

Dark Brotherhood As the city of London slumbers, there are those in its midst who conspire to rule the world through the darkest and most nefarious means. These seven, seated in positions of extraordinary power and influence, marshal forces from the far side to aid them in their fiendish endeavor. Force of One In the aftermath of a bloody séance and a terrifying supernatural contact, a courageous young doctor finds himself drawn into a malevolent conspiracy beyond human comprehension. All or Nothing The future is not safe, as a thousand-year reign of pure evil is about to begin, unless a small group of stalwart champions can unravel the unspeakable mysteries behind a crime far more terrible than murder.

Arthur Conan Doyle has just killed off Sherlock Holmes in "The Final Problem," and he immediately becomes one of the most hated men in London. So when he is contacted by a medium "of some renown" and asked to investigate a murder, he jumps at the chance to get out of the city. The only thing is that the murder hasn't happened yet--the medium, one Hope Thraxton, has foreseen that her death will occur at the third séance of a meeting of the Society for Psychical Research at her manor house in the English countryside. Along for the ride is Conan Doyle's good friend Oscar Wilde, and together they work to narrow down the list of suspects, which includes a mysterious foreign Count, a levitating magician, and an irritable old woman with a "familiar." Meanwhile, Conan Doyle is enchanted by the plight of the capricious Hope Thraxton, who may or may not have a more complicated back-story than it first appears. As Conan Doyle and Wilde participate in séances and consider the possible motives of the assembled group, the clock ticks ever closer to Hope's murder, in The Revenant of Thraxton Hall by Vaughn Entwistle.

1895. Victorian England trembles on the verge of hysteria in Vaughn Entwistle's The Dead Assassin. Terrorist bombs are detonating around the Capitol and every foreigner is suspected of being an Anarchist lurking beneath a cape. Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle is summoned to the scene of a gruesome crime that has baffled and outraged Scotland Yard's best. A senior member of Her Majesty's government has been brutally murdered, and the body of his attacker lies close by--riddled with bullets. More perplexing, one of the attending detectives recognizes the dead assassin as Charlie Higginbotham, a local Cockney pickpocket and petty thief. Higginbotham is not just an improbable suspect, but an impossible suspect, for the young detective watched him take the drop two weeks previously, hanged at Newgate Prison. Conan Doyle calls in his friend Oscar Wilde for assistance and soon the two authors find themselves swept up in an investigation so bizarre it defies conventional wisdom and puts the lives of their loved ones, the Nation, and even the Monarch herself in dire peril. The murders continue, committed by a shadowy cadre of seemingly unstoppable assassins. As the sinister plot unravels, an implausible theory becomes the only possible solution: someone is reanimating the corpses of executed criminals and sending them shambling through the London fog... and programmed for murder.

Dartmoor, 1900. Two friends are roaming the moors: Arthur Conan Doyle - the most famous novelist of his age - who has recently killed off his most popular creation, Sherlock Holmes; and Bertram Fletcher Robinson - Holmes aficionado and editor of the Daily Express. They are researching a detective novel, a collaboration starring a new hero, set in the eerie stillness of ancient West Country moorland, and featuring a monstrous dog. They already have a title... London, 1902. The Hound of the Baskervilles is published, featuring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead. Conan Doyle and Fletcher Robinson have not spoken for two years and the book is credited to just one author. It will become one of the most famous stories ever written. But who really wrote it? And what really happened on those moors, to drive the two friends apart?

Lovers of historical mysteries will relish this chilling Victorian tale based on real events and cloaked in authenticity. The first in a series of fiendishly clever historical murder mysteries, it casts British literature's most fascinating and controversial figure as the lead sleuth. A young artist's model has been murdered, and legendary wit Oscar Wilde enlists his friends Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Sherard to help him investigate. But when they arrive at the scene of the crime they find no sign of the gruesome killing--save one small spatter of blood, high on the wall. Set in London, Paris, Oxford, and Edinburgh at the height of Queen Victoria's reign, here is a gripping eyewitness account of Wilde's secret involvement in the curious case of Billy Wood, a young man whose brutal murder served as the inspiration for "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Told by Wilde's contemporary--poet Robert Sherard--this novel provides a fascinating and evocative portrait of the great playwright and his own "consulting detective," Sherlock Holmes creator, Arthur Conan Doyle.

The second witty installment in an astonishingly authentic historical mystery series featuring detective Oscar Wilde and his partner in crime, Arthur Conan Doyle. It's 1892, and Wilde is the toast of London, riding high on the success of his play Lady Windemere's Fan. While celebrating with friends at a dinner party he conjures up a game called murder that poses the question: Who would you most like to kill? Wilde and friends -- including Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, and poet Robert Sherard (the novel's narrator) -- write the names of their victims on pieces of paper and choose them one by one. After leaving the party, Wilde scoffs at the suggestion that he may have instigated a very dangerous game indeed....The very next day, the game takes an all-too- sinister turn when the first victim turns up dead. Soon Wilde and his band of amateur detectives must travel through the realms of politics, theatre, and even boxing to unearth whose misguided passions have the potential to become deadly poisons...not only for the perpetrator of the seemingly perfect crimes but also for the trio of detectives investigating them. Richly atmospheric and as entertaining as Wilde himself, this book is the second in a series destined to delight mystery readers and fans of historical fiction alike.

New York, January 1896. Arthur Conan Doyle, the renowned created of Sherlock Holmes, arrives with his wife Louisa at the Britannic Hotel in New York for his first American tour. While Arthur prepares his lectures, Louisa becomes entranced by the vibrant, dangerous metropolis brimming with debauchery and iniquity around every corner. When a woman's mutilated corpse turns up in a Bowery alley, Louisa recognizes the victim as someone she's seen in the hotel. Obsessed with the woman's gruesome death, Louisa starts piecing together clues to reveal a story of murder and depravity; a story that leads back to the hotel itself and a madman who is watching her every move.

Deep in the trenches of Flanders Fields, men are dying in the thousands every day. So one more death shouldn't be a surprise. But then a body turns up with bizarre injuries, and Sherlock Holmes' former sidekick Dr John Watson finds his suspicions raised. Soon more bodies appear, and Watson must discover who is the killer in the trenches.

The year is 1917 and Major John Watson is held in a notorious prisoner of war camp deep in Germany, there as Medical Officer for the British prisoners. With the Allied blockade of Germany, food is perilously short in the camp and when a new prisoner is murdered all assume the poor chap was killed for his Red Cross parcel. Watson, though, isn't so sure. Something isn't quite what it seems and a creeping feeling of unease tells Watson there is more to this than meets the eye. And when an escape plot is apparently uncovered in his hut and he is sent to solitary confinement, he knows he has touched a nerve. If Watson is to reveal the heinous crimes that have occurred at the camp, he must escape before he is silenced for good. All he needs is some long-distance help from Sherlock Holmes...

The skies above London hum with danger. And in the Channel enemies lie in wait ... Autumn, 1917. London is not the city that Dr John Watson and Sherlock Holmes once bestrode like giants. Terror has come from the sky and Londoners are scurrying underground in fear. Then a twin tragedy strikes Watson. An old friend, Staff Nurse Jennings, is on a boat-ambulance torpedoed in the Channel with no survivors. And his concert-going companion, Sir Gilbert Hardy, is kidnapped. Then comes the gruesome ransom demand, for Sir Gilbert and four others, which will involve terrible mutilation unless the demands are met. Help comes from an unlikely source when Watson finds himself face-to-face with his old ruthless adversary, the German spy, Miss Pillbody. She makes him a remarkable offer and so an unlikely partnership is formed - the enemy spy and Sherlock Holmes's faithful companion, a detective duo which will eventually uncover a shocking case of state-sponsored murder and find Watson on board a German bomber, with a crew intent on setting London ablaze.

Deep in England's green and pleasant land something evil lurks… Dr John Watson is back home, fresh from his time in the trenches of Flanders Fields. The horrors of war weigh heavy on his mind, and now his task is to help rehabilitate soldiers suffering from the crippling effects of shell-shock. But the war is not yet over and in one corner of England lies a secret, one that the establishment is determined to keep under wraps. For in the woodlands of the lush countryside, the government is building the secret weapon which will win the war for Britain. Here, they are developing the land ship - never-before-seen 'tanks' which the army is convinced will end the stalemate on the Western Front. But then disaster strikes. After a training exercise in one of the tanks, eight men are mysteriously struck down, seven of them dead. There is just the one survivor, and he's not talking. It is clear something is horribly wrong, and the army calls in the only man who will know how to solve the mystery: Dr John Watson.

Imagine the twisted evil twins of Holmes and Watson and you have the dangerous duo of Prof. James Moriarty - wily, snake- like, fiercely intelligent, unpredictable - and Colonel Sebastian 'Basher' Moran - violent,politically incorrect, debauched. Together they run London crime, owning police and criminals alike. Unravelling mysteries -- all for their own gain.

Labeled the "Napoleon of Crime" by an obsessed Sherlock Holmes, Professor James Moriarty is a prominent scientist, a keen analytical mind, and a dabbler in less than savory doings. Two friends and former associates of Moriarty - Benjamin Barnett and his wife, the former Cecily Perrine - are travelling in Europe in early 1891 when they realize that they have become objects of scrutiny from persons unknown. Things turn deadly when they find themselves in the midst of an attempted assassination of a German prince. Meanwhile in Vienna, the younger son of a British nobleman - indulging in what was then known as "The Great Game" of amateur spying - finds himself framed for the murder of his paramour and the assassination of an Austrian Duke. In London, an unknown caller arrives at Moriarty's door on a matter of great urgency. But before Moriarty can be summoned to speak with him, the stranger is shot by a crossbow bolt loosed by unseen hands. While a lesser man might be daunted, Moriarty is merely intrigued and begins to investigate. What Moriarty uncovers is a cabal that seems to be using assassination to destabilize the rule of the crowned heads of Europe. But he also senses that there is something even bigger than this operating - a conspiracy behind the conspiracy - and detects the workings of a mind quite possibly as clever as his own. Using his contacts, friends, and the not-so-desired help of his often nemesis Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty must save his friends and outwit his most cunning opponent while the fate of history hangs in the balance.

In the late Victorian days, a large amount of gold is arriving unannounced on the cargo ship The Empress of India. Yet the impossible happens--the shipment of gold disappears en route. Sherlock Holmes, brought in by Her Majesty's Government, knows that only one man is both diabolical and clever enough to pull off such an outlandish, daring, and, yes, theoretically impossible crime: Professor James Moriarty. Moriarty, however, had nothing to do with the crime and yet finds himself under siege from all sides. To regain his peace, Professor Moriarty undertakes to locate the missing gold. But the gold is only the exposed tip of the iceberg and he soon finds himself matching wits with a mind as nimble--perhaps even more so--than his own.

In London, 1892, a well-guarded young nobleman goes missing under distressing circumstances. The nobleman, one Baron Renfrew, is actually Prince Albert Victor, eldest grandson of Queen Victoria. He disappeared while he was visiting a house of ill repute, with bodyguards both inside and outside the building--with his inside bodyguard rendered unconscious and the trussed-up corpse of a brutally murdered young woman left behind. Hoping to find the missing Prince and to clear him of the murder, the royal family is looking for a brilliant--and, more importantly, discreet--investigator. Sherlock Holmes, alas, is out of the country so, at the suggestion of his brother Mycroft, they turn to the only man who just might be more brilliant--Dr. James Moriarty. Moriarty, at the time, is up on charges of murder, awaiting retrial after his first jury was hung. In exchange for his release and the murder charges (of which he's innocent), the so-called "Napoleon of Crime" will use all his resources to track down the missing prince and find out who is behind his disappearance and the brutal murders left in his wake. He soon finds that someone out there is laying a trail, setting up Moriarty himself to take the fall for the crimes. If the real Moriarty doesn't manage to unravel and foil this plot soon, he may never again draw another free breath.

Internationally bestselling author Anthony Horowitz's nail-biting new novel plunges us back into the dark and complex world of Detective Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty--dubbed "the Napoleon of crime"--in the aftermath of their fateful struggle at the Reichenbach Falls. Days after Holmes and Moriarty disappear into the waterfall's churning depths, Frederick Chase, a senior investigator at New York's infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency, arrives in Switzerland. Chase brings with him a dire warning: Moriarty's death has left a convenient vacancy in London's criminal underworld. There is no shortage of candidates to take his place--including one particularly fiendish criminal mastermind. Chase is assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones, a Scotland Yard detective and devoted student of Holmes's methods of deduction, whom Conan Doyle introduced in The Sign of Four. The two men join forces and fight their way through the sinuous streets of Victorian London--from the elegant squares of Mayfair to the shadowy wharfs and alleyways of the Docks--in pursuit of this sinister figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, who is determined to stake his claim as Moriarty's successor.

It is the turn of the century and, having survived the struggle with Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls, Professor James Moriarty is alive and well and about to realize his plans to establish crime syndicates in the major cities of the United States. But suddenly he is called back to London, where his vast criminal society has been overrun by a rival concern led by the shadowy Sir Jordan Jack Idell--or Idle Jack--a supposed gentleman hoodlum acting on behalf of criminal elements in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. As Moriarty fights back--against both the unruly crime families and the forces of law and order--readers are thrown in among the lurkers, punishers, dippers, cracksmen, and the professor's elite guard. Moriarty lives again and revolts against those who attempt to oust him from his rightful place as king of "Napoleon of Crime."

With riches accumulated from an American crime spree, Professor Moriarty proceeds to annihilate his enemies. He murders the leaders of Europe's underworld one by one, then prepares his most hideous revenge for his arch-enemy, Sherlock Holmes. Will he succeed in this most terrible plan?

Once again, the game is afoot . . . What really happened in Switzerland between Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes in 1891? And why is Holmes, now in London at 221B Baker Street, curiously uncooperative with Scotland Yard's inquiries? Furthermore, why has Moriarty planned a grand meeting with the international crime syndicate? These are the questions that make up the larger mystery of the sinister Professor Moriarty s return."

Diva/detective Irene Adler and her bridegroom, handsome barrister Godfrey Norton, are honeymooning in Paris when they become embroiled in an investigation: a drowned sailor's body has been recovered from the Seine, and on his chest is a tattoo. A tattoo like one Irene once saw in London-- on another sailor's chest, while the corpse lay upon Bram Stoker's dining room table. This clue will lead Irene to the first beautiful blond American princess of Monaco, political and matrimonial treachery, and a sword duel as she and her new friend Sarah Bernhardt unravel the mystery-- with, of course, the help of Godfrey, Irene's faithful chronicler Miss Penelope Huxleigh, and Sherlock Holmes himself.

A delightful Victorian adventure novel about the only woman Sherlock Holmes has ever admired: Irene Adler. In this delightful encore to Good Night, Mr. Holmes, diva-turned-detective Irene Adler engages in a battle of wits with Sherlock Holmes -- and a vicious killer who seeks to hide a traitorous past...

A novel of suspense featuring Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler Originally titled Irene's Last Waltz The ever-irresistible Irene Adler, her dashing barrister husband, Godfrey Norton, and the indomitable Miss Nell Huxleigh have arrived at last as their French cottage-having survived dastardly plots, Russian spies, pistol-wielding criminals, and the occasional cobra. The happy trio seeks nothing but rest and peace-but Irene has always chafed under idle conditions, and Paris, she says, "is pretty and urbane, but hardly a center of excitement." So when Charles Frederick Worth, the Parisian king of couture, invites Irene to become his "mannequin de ville," to wear the fabulous worth creations to stimulate his trade, Irene leaps at the chance. But what was a joyous lark soon turns into a journey that can lead to disgrace, dishonor, and death when Irene, Nell, and Godfrey are drawn into a series of events that will compel Irene to the one place that she daren't go and the one man she must not confront-Prague and the King of Bohemia.

Before Caleb Carr and Laurie R. King, Carole Nelson Douglas gave readers a compelling look into Victoriana with a bold new detective character: Irene Adler, the only woman to ever outwit Sherlock Holmes. An operatic diva and the intellectual equal of most of the men she encounters, Irene is as much at home with disguises and a revolver as with high society and haute couture. Chapel Noir is the fifth book in Carole Nelson Douglas's critically acclaimed Irene Adler series, which reinvents "the woman" that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced in "A Scandal in Bohemia" as the heroine of her own extravagant adventures. This time readers are thrust into one of the darkest periods of criminal fact and fiction when two courtesans are found brutally slaughtered in the lavish boudoir of a Paris house. No woman should ever see such horrors, authorities declare, but a powerful sponsor has insisted that Irene investigate the case, along with her faithful companion, sheltered parson's daughter Penelope Huxleigh. But does anyone really seek the truth, or do they wish only to bury it with the dead women--for there is a worse horror that will draw Irene and her archrival, Sherlock Holmes, into a duel of wits with a fiendish opponent. These Paris killings mimic a series of gruesome murders that terrorized London only months before, in a dangerous and disreputable part of town known as Whitechapel . . .

Irene Adler is the only woman ever to have outwitted Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal in Bohemia; she is as much at home with a spyglass and revolver than with haute couture and gala balls. Her adventures are the stuff of legend, for she has faced down sinister spies, thwarted plots against nations, and led an unlikely group, including the bachelor of Baker Street and his faithful cohort Watson, through the cellars and catacombs of 1889 Paris to capture Jack the Ripper. But disaster scattered those allies and the Ripper has escaped... With the help of an unreliable prostitute named Pink, and theatrical manager Bram Stoker, who would later pen Dracula, Irene follows the clues that lead back to Bohemia, and on to new and bloodier atrocities. And when pursuers and prey reunite at a remote castle in Transylvania, the Ripper is cornered and fully unveiled at last...

Irene Adler is the only woman ever to have outwitted Sherlock Holmes... and the one who has come closest to stealing his heart. She has competed (and sometimes cooperated) with the famous fictional detective over six popular and acclaimed novels, featuring her daring investigations across the Continent. All along, the beautiful and brilliant American diva-turned-detective has managed to conceal her background and history, even from her dashing barrister husband, Godfrey Norton, and her devoted companion and biographer, English spinster Nell Huxleigh. But she has had some help along the way to do this, from such unlikely sources as the Baron de Rothschild, Sarah Bernhardt, and Bram Stoker, as well as the soon-to-be-infamous Nellie Bly, a daring American journalist who helped Irene hunt Jack the Ripper. Now Nellie has wired Irene some astounding news, news that will shake her world: Irene's mother is the target of an assassin. Irene's past is shrouded in secrecy, and at first she is unwilling to divulge anything that would link her to America. But a series of bizarre killings in New York City draws her reluctantly back to her native country, where she must race with a murderer to find her mother, a woman of mystery who may turn out to be the most notorious woman of the nineteenth century. As Irene forges a trail into her own hidden past, Nellie Bly draws another ace investigator across the Atlantic to join in the hunt for a serial killer, the last man on earth Irene Adler wants to discover anything about her shocking past... Sherlock Holmes.

Irene Adler is the beautiful opera singer who bested the best detective in the world, the only woman to ever outwit Sherlock Holmes. She has spent years in self-imposed exile in Europe, in an attempt to reinvent herself and create a new life, because she cannot remember the old one. But now circumstances have forced this diva-turned-detective to investigate a past she doesn't remember - on her home ground. Daredevil reporter Nelly Bly has lured Irene, her faithful chronicler and British parson's daughter Nell Huxleigh, and Holmes himself to America, offering information regarding Irene's parentage. New York City in 1889 proved to be both fascinating and perilous for Irene, and Nelly Bly's information was more harmful than helpful. Because now Irene and her allies - and enemies - must race to follow a deadly trail of hidden personal and political history back in time to the days of the California gold rush, thirty years earlier.They are pursuing the complex and contradictory life story of one of the most notorious women of the nineteenth century, and before the intrigue-ridden quest is over, Irene and Nell will uncover murderous international political conspiracies, lost treasure, and finally... the full, shocking secret of Irene's birth.

Alive and well despite the widely published accounts of her death, diva Irene Adler and her dashing husband Godfrey Norton are taking coffee with their friend Nell Huxleigh in a Parisian sidewalk cafe when a stranger dressed in Oriental garb falls at their feet. It is not Irene's beauty that has felled him, but a dose of poison--and even more surprisingly, the friends learn as he recovers that he is an Englishman The mysterious young man informs them that he is seeking a Dr. Watson who tended his wounds at the disastrous battle of Maiwand, a man whose life he says is now in mortal danger. The hunt is on and their search will lead them to a command performance for the Empress of all the Russias and to Sarah Bernhardt, into a channel steamer and at last to the doorstep of 221 Baker Street, where they will discover deadly secrets both past and present. "

Irene Adler, American opera singer and the one woman who outsmarted Sherlock Holmes, finds herself a widow at thirty-two, wealthy but emotionally broken. At the same time, Sherlock Holmes finds himself unable to return to England after faking his death at Reichenbach Falls and is drawn into an investigation of two men with designs on a woman they call Miss A, who is none other than Irene Adler herself. The Detective and The Woman throw their lot in together to uncover a dangerous plot with implications that stretch across the Atlantic. In the process, they meet legendary inventor Thomas Edison and experience life in Florida at the turn of the 20th century.

Irene Adler is enjoying a quiet, undisturbed life in Sussex when the mysterious disappearance of a local farmer named James Phillimore throws her world into turmoil and forces her to enlist the aid of her friend and former enemy Sherlock Holmes. Irritated by his flatmate John Watson's romantic inclinations, Holmes journeys to Fulworth to assist The Woman in her investigation. Along the way, the two uncover the darkness, intrigue, scandal, and unexpected loyalty that lie at the heart of a see...

The mysterious death of Irene Adler's bees leads to a consultation with Sherlock Holmes and the discovery of a sinister connection to a case many years in the past. When this threat imperils the safety of everyone the detective holds dear, he and , he and The Woman are forced to use every ounce of their ingenuity to save their friends.

Entering into service as housekeeper for the distinguished investigator Sherlock Holmes and his associate Dr. Watson, Mrs. Hudson expands her duties beyond keeping things tidy. The great detective's latest client is a traveler recently returned from the Far East-and nearly killed under mysterious circumstances. He says he's under a Sumatran curse that will end his life. While Holmes and Watson seek a less superstitious solution to the man's dilemma, Mrs. Hudson and Flottie, the orphan girl in her care, take it upon themselves to investigate the case. They are determined to solve the mystery-even if it entails pointing Mrs. Hudson's employers in the right direction.

Even Sherlock Holmes needs help sometimes... Londoners are turning out for the unveiling of the Malabar Rose-a rare and remarkable ruby-and the British debut of the Great Salmanazar. A magician and illusionist extraordinaire, Salmanazar is the talk of Europe-since whenever he appears abroad, daring thefts of famous jewelry coincide with his performances. But after a special representative of the Home Secretary begs Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to help guard the Malabar Rose, it vanishes under the most baffling of circumstances. Suspecting that the Great Salmanazar has used smoke-and-mirrors on Scotland Yard, the formidable Mrs. Hudson is called upon to give a lesson in criminal deduction to that most logical of minds-the great Sherlock Holmes.

Mrs. Hudson and her sidekick Vi Warner have been called upon to solve a murder mystery that has baffled Scotland Yard. At a small society gathering, the guests are hypnotized, and one of their number is murdered. No one remembers anything, the murder weapon is gone; so is the hypnotist, and Emma Hudson is called in to solve the most perplexing puzzle Scotland Yard has seen.

Fresh from the triumph of their first case, Mrs. Emma Hudson and Mrs. Violet Warner are thrust into a new mystery when young Winston Churchill arrives in need of help. He asks the ladies to trail a terrorist known only as Marco, and their investigation soon takes the savvy pair into London's seedier environs and a world of peril.