When Mrs. Hudson asks Holmes and Watson to find a missing girl, neither men expected what they would find. Along with Lestrade, they are plunged into a case of abduction and murder. As they race from Marylebone, to Finchley, to Wapping, and back again, time is running out for them to solve the case without further casualties. With two of their own under threat, the pressure is mounting to catch and stop the group known as "Hellfire Heirs".

This is the fourth story from The Art of Sherlock Holmes project and first appeared in The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Part V.

Sherlock Holmes: Stranger than Truth is a collection of 13 brand new Sherlock Holmes mysteries featuring the Great Detective working side-by-side with such notable historical figures like P.T. Barnum, Theodore Roosevelt, Annie Oakley, Nellie Bly, Lord Kitchener, Joseph Merrick a.k.a. the Elephant Man, and more!

Enough time has passed. Dr. John Watson can finally reopen his tin box of chronicles. In this astonishing collection, a treasure trove of new accounts of Sherlock Holmes’s extraordinary skills finally comes to light. What is the connection between murderous attacks on a colonel’s wife and the legend of King Arthur? Why is a disgraced former ship captain stalking his neighbor? Who stole the statue of The Dying Gaul from a completely secure museum in Rome? Find the answers to these confounding mysteries and more in seven exhilarating new short stories.

On the eve of his wedding, Dr. Watson has his own problems, stumbling upon a mystery involving Sherlock Holmes's elder brother Mycroft. As the case turns to tragedy, Holmes and Watson find themselves attempting to unravel a tangled thread of murder, mayhem, and political intrigue that will bring them to the very edge of destruction!

Solving murders is as easy as ABCDE in this brand-new collection. Roger Riccard, one of the most respected Sherlock Holmes authors, has again taken pen in hand to bring forth the first five adventures in a new series of short stories for your entertainment.

When misadventure led a schoolboy in London to employment at Baker Street, few could have guessed where his introduction to Sherlock Holmes would lead. But as the lad matures and he finds himself caught in the middle of a murder investigation, his friendship with Holmes and Watson lures him into the role of detective. 'Billy' documents his experiences, and soon his sleuthing skills not only bring him to another murder, but also lay the foundation for his metamorphosis into a famous mystery writer.

From some clear pieces of glass and a raven's feather, the great detective must divine exactly who the client was and what prompted him to seek assistance at 221B. Fortunately, Holmes has a number of experts upon whom he can rely as well as his own vast store of esoteric knowledge. Treading a twisted path, Holmes soon finds himself matching wits with an unseen criminal, who appears to be the equal of the late Professor Moriarty. At the same time, he is tasked with sparing the monarchy any possible embarrassment that may stem from the investigation.

On the eve of Newgate Prison's demolition, Watson spies Holmes leaving a public sale of the prison's miscellany in the company of a beautiful stranger, and in possession of an unusual trophy–the death mask of a woman who, more than 20 years earlier, had been executed for the murder of her three children. Holmes agrees to satisfy Watson's curiosity about the memento by recounting the decades-old history of its subject.

On concluding a long day of house calls, Dr. Watson receives an urgent summons to attend his friend, Sherlock Holmes. He arrives at 221B Baker Street to find Holmes in a state of deep shock and wearing scorched clothing that reeks of excrement.

The Keys of Death is Baker Street bedrock. In Gretchen Altabef’s 1880 novel, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, and Mrs. Hudson begin something great in the world.

Spring 1937. While German Chancellor Adolf Hitler ceaselessly talks of peace, his actions seem deliberately calculated to make the Western allies lose patience. The schizophrenic geopolitical atmosphere even can be felt as far away as Fulworth, England, the home of the retired Sherlock Holmes, where the Steiners, a German migrant couple, have recently found a refuge and have assumed care of the detective's household after the passing of Mrs Hudson.

The world was not prepared for this story, a conspiracy hatched in the highest levels of the British government. A rogue Minister of Defense plans to turn soldiers into blood-thirsty animals—and Holmes and Watson may be among their first victims. The adventure starts when Holmes is warned away from investigating Jack the Ripper’s heinous crimes. Despite Holmes’ well-known skills, he is sidelined. He must content himself with a straightforward case, finding a bolting beau, the result of a simple lovers’ quarrel. But that “romance gone wrong” is really the key to a nasty secret.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment tells of two horrific ax murders in St. Petersburg. It becomes much more than a mere "account", however, when a pair of dead bodies turn up in London's East End, their heads split open by an ax blade. To Scotland Yard, the crimes are murders to solve. To Sherlock Holmes, they present an intriguing puzzle. But to the literary man, Dr. John H. Watson, they seem a deliberate restaging of the brutal murders depicted in Dostoyevsky's narrative. What can be the purpose behind an actual recreation of the fictional killings?

For all we know, or think we know, about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, what we don’t know is far, far greater. In the duo’s first case, A Study in Scarlet, we learn that Holmes and Watson met on January 1st, 1881, and subsequently moved into an apartment together at 221b Baker Street. Their first case officially began on March 4th of that year, and it is argued that “The Adventure of the Resident Patient” possibly took place in October of 1881, depending on which version of the story you read. But what happened during the rest of 1881? Or all of 1882?

Agatha Christie's first two Poirot novels, narrated with a general-American accent. The Mysterious Affair at Styles: Someone has poisoned wealthy Emily Inglethorp. But who? And how? Everyone suspects Emily's young husband, Alfred...and Alfred seems to be actually trying to get arrested and charged.... The Murder on the Links: Poirot comes to France in response to a desperate plea for help to find his client already murdered - stabbed in the back and lying in an open grave. Brusque, arrogant Inspector Giraud thinks he knows who did it.

Charles Lenox, Victorian gentleman and armchair explorer, likes nothing more than to relax in his private study with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. But when his lifelong friend Lady Jane asks for his help, Lenox cannot resist the chance to unravel a mystery. Prudence Smith, one of Jane's former servants, is dead of an apparent suicide. But Lenox suspects something far more sinister: murder, by a rare and deadly poison.

Ian Rutledge returns to his career at Scotland Yard after years fighting in the First World War. Unknown to his colleagues he is still suffering from shell shock, and is burdened with the guilt of having had executed a young soldier on the battlefield for refusing to fight. A jealous colleague has learned of his secret and has managed to have Rutledge assigned to a difficult case which could spell disaster for Rutledge whatever the outcome. A retired officer has been murdered, and Rutledge goes to investigate.

When Harold Merefield returned home in the early hours of a winter morning from a festive little party at that popular nightclub, the Naxos, he was startled by a gruesome discovery. On his bed was a corpse. There was nothing to show the identity of the dead man or the cause of his death. At the inquest, the jury found a verdict of ‘death from natural causes’ - perhaps they were right, but yet?

The recent death of one of the descendants of Dr. Watson has brought to light his personal papers. These include a number of stories that Dr. Watson suppressed at the time for various reasons. As all involved are long dead, the inheritor has agreed to the publication of a set of eight of the most interesting adventures.

Mrs. Laetitia Rodd, aged 52, is the widow of an archdeacon who makes her living as a highly discreet private investigator. Her brother, Frederick Tyson, is a criminal barrister living in nearby Highgate with his wife and 10 children. Frederick finds the cases, and Laetitia solves them using her arch intelligence and her immaculate cover as an unsuspecting widow. When a case arises involving the son of the highly connected Sir James Calderstone, Laetitia sets off for Lincolnshire undercover as the family's new governess.

A murder trial takes a diabolical turn when the wife of the accused takes the stand.... A woman's sixth sense - and a loaded revolver - signal premonitions of doom.... A stranded motorist seeks refuge in a remote mansion and is greeted with a dire warning.... Detective Hercule Poirot faces his greatest challenge when his services are enlisted - by the victim - in a bizarre locked-room murder.

From the stunning title story (which inspired the classic film thriller) to the rarest gems in detective fiction, these eleven tales of baffling crime and brilliant deduction showcase Agatha Christie at her dazzling best.

London, 1851. With the opening of the Great Exhibition at hand, interest in mounting in the engineering triumphs of the railways, but not everyone feels like celebrating. In an audacious attack, the London to Birmingham mail train is robbed and derailed, causing many casualties. Planned with military precision, this crime proves a challenge to Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck who fights to untangle a web of murder, blackmail and destruction.

Only a woman with an iron backbone could succeed as an undertaker in Victorian England, but Violet Morgan takes great pride in her trade. While her husband, Graham, is preoccupied with elevating their station in society, Violet is cultivating a sterling reputation for Morgan Undertaking.

London, 1882. Alec Lonsdale, a young reporter on the Pall Mall Gazette, is working on a story about a fatal house fire. But the postmortem on the victim produces shocking results: Patrick Donovan's death was no accident. But why would someone murder a humble shop assistant and steal part of his brain? When a second body is discovered, its throat cut, and then a third, Lonsdale and his spirited female colleague, Hulda Friederichs, begin to uncover evidence of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest echelons of Victorian society.

In A Conspiracy of Paper, Weaver investigates a crime of the most personal sort: the mysterious death of his estranged father, a notorious stockjobber. To find the answers, Weaver must contend with a desperate prostitute who knows too much about his past, relatives who remind him of his alienation from the Jewish faith, and a cabal of powerful men in the world of British finance who have hidden their business dealings behind an intricate web of deception and violence. Relying on brains and brawn, Weaver uncovers the beginnings of a strange new economic order.

The first three mysteries for Dorothy L. Sayers' aristocratic sleuth: first, a body is discovered in a Battersea bathroom, wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez, on the same night that financier Sir Reuben Levy disappears from his Park Lane home. Then, Wimsey returns to England when his brother, the Duke of Denver, is accused of murdering the fiance of their sister, Lady Mary, and a trial in the House of Lords looms; and finally, an overheard conversation in a restaurant begins an investigation of the strangely premature death of wealthy and terminally ill old lady Miss Agatha Dawson.

When a maid in the upper class Ellison household is strangled, Inspector Pitt is called in to investigate. He finds a world ruled by strict manners and social customs, where the inhabitants of the Ellison's neighborhood appear to be more outraged by the thought of scandal than they are by murder. Inspector Pitt finds a most unlikely ally in Charlotte, the Ellison's spirited daughter. But as the murders continue, Charlotte and Pitt find themselves drawn together by more than the investigation.

Penelope Ashford, Portia Cynster's younger sister, has devoted her life to the care of orphans. But lately, her charges seem to be disappearing without a trace. Penelope enlists investigator Barnaby Adair to solve the mystery. Adair agrees, intrigued by both the case and by Penelope.

When the Council of 10 takes the seer Nostradamus into custody, suspecting him of poisoning a friend of the prince, his young apprentice must unravel a web of magic and murder if he is to have any future of his own.