James Lovegrove's Sherlock Holmes

From the acclaimed author of Sherlock Holmes & The Christmas Demon comes another beautifully presented seasonal mystery.1889. The First Terror. At a boys' prep school in the Kent marshes, a pupil is found drowned in a pond. Could this be the fulfilment of a witch's curse from four hundred years earlier?1890. The Second Terror. A wealthy man dies of a heart attack at his London townhouse. Was he really frightened to death by ghosts?1894. The Third Terror. A body is discovered at a Surrey country manor, hideously ravaged. Is the culprit a cannibal, as the evidence suggests? These three linked crimes test Sherlock Holmes's deductive powers, and his skepticism about the supernatural, to the limit.

It's the autumn of 1890, and a spate of bombings has hit London. The newspapers are full of fevered speculation about anarchists, antimonarchists and Fenians. But one man suspects an even more sinister hand behind the violence. Sherlock Holmes believes Professor Moriarty is orchestrating a nationwide campaign of terror, but to what end? At the same time, a bizarrely garbed figure has been spotted on the rooftops and in the grimy back alleys of the capital. He moves with the extraordinary agility of a latter-day Spring-heeled Jack. He possesses weaponry and armor of unprecedented sophistication. He is known only by the name Baron Cauchemar, and he appears to be a scourge of crime and villainy. But is this masked man truly the force for good that he seems? Is he connected somehow to the bombings? Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. Watson are about to embark on one of their strangest and most exhilarating adventures yet.

It is 1884, and when a fellow landlady finds her lodger poisoned, Mrs. Hudson turns to Sherlock Holmes. The police suspect the landlady of murder, but Mrs. Hudson insists that her friend is innocent. Upon investigating, the companions discover that the lodger, a civil servant recently returned from India, was living in almost complete seclusion, and that his last act was to scrawl a mysterious message on a scrap of paper. The riddles pile up as aged big game hunter Allan Quatermain is spotted at the scene of the crime when Holmes and Watson investigate. The famous man of mind and the legendary man of action will make an unlikely team in a case of corruption, revenge, and what can only be described as magic...

Man vs Machine It is 1895, and Sherlock Holmes is settling back into life as a consulting detective at 221B Baker Street, when he and Watson learn of strange goings-on amidst the dreaming spires of Oxford. A Professor Quantock has built a wondrous computational device, which he claims is capable of analytical thought to rival the cleverest men alive. Naturally Sherlock Holmes cannot ignore this challenge. He and Watson travel to Oxford, where a battle of wits ensues between the great detective and his mechanical counterpart as they compete to see which of them can be first to solve a series of crimes, from a bloody murder to a missing athlete. But as man and machine vie for supremacy, it becomes clear that the Thinking Engine has its own agenda...

It is 1895, and Sherlock Holmes's new client is a High Court judge, whose free-spirited daughter has disappeared without a trace. Holmes and Watson discover that the missing woman, Hannah Woolfson, was herself on the trail of a missing person, her close friend Sophia. Sophia was recruited to a group known as the Elysians, a quasi-religious sect obsessed with Ancient Greek myths and rituals, run by the charismatic Sir Philip Buchanan. Hannah has joined the Elysians under an assumed name, convinced that her friend has been murdered. Holmes agrees that she should continue as his agent within the secretive yet seemingly harmless cult, yet Watson is convinced Hannah is in terrible danger. For Sir Philip has dreams of improving humanity through classical ideals, and at any cost...

1913. The clouds of war are gathering. The world's great empires vie for supremacy. Europe is in turmoil, a powder keg awaiting a spark. A body is discovered on the shore below Beachy Head, just a mile from Sherlock Holmes's retirement cottage. The local police are satisfied that it's a suicide. The victim, a young man, recently suffered a disappointment in love, and Beachy Head is notorious as a place where the desperate and depressed leap to their deaths. Holmes, however, suspects murder. As he and Watson investigate, they uncover a conspiracy with shocking ramifications.