What's behind a series of mysterious deaths among the favourite concubines of Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II? Suspecting a plot against himself, the Sultan has called on Sherlock Holmes to investigate. However, as a man, the detective is clearly unable to penetrate the exotic enclosed world of the harem, so he reluctantly enlists the help of his landlady, Mrs Hudson. Together with Dr Watson, they travel across Europe by Orient Express to Constantinople, on the way encountering Holmes's old enemy, Baron Mauterpuis.

More parodies have been written targeting Sherlock Holmes than anyone else dead or alive, fictional or real. James M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, started it all back in the early 1890's and Sherlockian parody has been coming out regularly ever since, right into the age of the internet. While Sherlock's creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived, close to 400 appeared in Britain and America.

Lestrade panted, getting to his feet as the gang of Cheathams fell back. “Right now I can think of worse things than rescue by an amateur detective.” “My dear Lestrade, we're simply ensuring the fight is fair.” Sherlock Holmes somehow dissuaded the truth of that by the way his lips were coiling up at the edges (without letting go of the pipe in his teeth). Perhaps it was because he was clearly in disguise as a seedy deckhand in Dutchman's sailing clothes.

Fourteen stories, all in classic style, introduce Holmes to new clients with strange and quirky problems. Clues to a fortune are hidden in a ludicrous painting, a modern mummy walks, and a novel tourist attraction holds the key to why an unattractive lady is suddenly pursued by an amorous admirer.

The latest collection of Sherlock Holmes stories by well-known author, Denis O. Smith, provides a variety of puzzling and tangled mysteries for the great detective to unravel. What is the explanation for the train which arrives at its destination with not a soul on board? What lies behind the sudden, shocking death of one of the members at an exclusive London club? These cases require all of Holmes's unique investigative skills if the truth is to be uncovered.

""Mr. Sherlock Holmes? I am, or was, Lady Juliet Armstrong, Baroness Crestwell. Having been murdered, I am deceased, and require your assistance." Thus begins the strangest partnership in the long career of Sherlock Holmes! Brash and bold, silly and sassy, Lady Armstrong will not let a simple thing like death stop her from seeking the help of the Great Detective to solve the mystery of her untimely demise.

After the excitement of her recent adventures in Paris, Mrs Hudson goes to stay with her married daughter Eleanor in Bilbourne, a little village in Kent, the Garden of England. It is September, and the hop-harvest is in full swing at the nearby plantation belonging to Thomas Brakefield. But if Mrs Hudson was hoping for some peace and quiet away from the city, she is to be disappointed, soon caught up in dark passions that culminate in a brutal murder. At great risk to herself, Mrs Hudson goes in pursuit of the perpetrator.

This blend of fact and fiction sheds light on a virtually unexplored dimension of the Great Detective’s exploits. It is a perspective Sherlock Holmes — who elevated “true, cold reason … above all things” — would probably not appreciate. But for all its warmth and irrationality, there is just as much truth in the heart.

A client forsworn, a threatened town, and a Goliath of unimaginable proportions. Sherlock Holmes has survived a three-year vendetta against him by Moriarty’s remaining henchmen. Wounded and bleeding, with Mycroft’s help, he clandestinely boards an Atlantic steamship. At the close of his great hiatus, Holmes finds sanctuary at Vassar Women’s College. This radical challenge entangles him in the web of a nefarious mystery. Its unraveling involves New York’s most revolutionary residents: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

In Victorian London, Sherlock Holmes is not alone in solving mysteries that baffle the official police. Housekeeper, schoolmistress, detective: Mrs Meinir Davies tracks down missing mothers, stolen treasures, and secrets and scandals touching some of England's most venerable institutions, from the Church to the Houses of Parliament.

Sealed away from public view more than a century at the instruction of their author, Dr. John Watson, these three cases of Sherlock Holmes are available here for the first time. Like the earlier volume in this series, each reveals the role Holmes and Watson played in investigating crimes involving actual historical events and prominent personages.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson return in six further adventures which display the great detective's brilliance once more. In these adventures set across the span of the duo's lives at 221b Baker Street, Holmes and Watson travel from the highest realms of society to the lowest dens of criminality across London in pursuit of the solution to a host of baffling mysteries.

London, 1920: Boston-bred Enoch Hale, working as a reporter for the Central News Syndicate, arrives on the scene shortly after a music-hall escape artist is found hanging from the ceiling in his dressing room. What at first appears to be a suicide turns out to be murder...the first of several using the same modus operandi. What's the connecting factor among all the victims? Or isn't there one? That's what the dogged journalist Hale aims to find out.

Holmes is consulted by Mr Devine on an unusual matter. Mr Devine has apprehended two malefactors in a well-watered garden in the Middle East and is unsure what is an appropriate form of retribution to impose. Holmes, Watson, and Mr Devine discuss the problem at length before arriving at a solution which satisfies all of them. Orlando Pearson himself then pens an essay setting out a radical theory about Sherlock Holmes and this theory is given further substance in an extraordinary fragment of Dr Watson’s writing found in the Public Record Office long after Watson’s death.

This is the 25th story from The Art of Sherlock Holmes project and first appeared in The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Part VI.

When Sasha receives a call from her old university friend Gabby inviting her to spend Christmas at Gabby’s remote Scottish lake house, Sasha knows she shouldn’t go. Twelve years ago, on Christmas Eve, when Sasha and her five closest friends were celebrating the festive season, something truly horrific happened that would change the course of their friendship forever. Something that meant Sasha hasn’t spoken to any of them since that night.

Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of best-selling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read.

After the killing of a prominent mob lawyer, NYPD homicide detectives Jacob Jackson and Caitlin Grimes start receive chilling, written “rules” for how to commit the perfect murder. "Rule number one for the perfect murder: Evidence is your enemy. Leave none behind." Jackson (Reid Scott) and Grimes (Cobie Smulders) race to find the killer, setting them on a collision course with the city’s crime underbelly, and a perpetrator who seems happy to toy with them. “Rule number two. No crimes of passion. The perfect murder is always business, never pleasure.”

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

It’s been two years since Anna Cartwright’s life fell apart. During her first school trip as a young teacher, a student went missing and was never found. Not only was her career ruined, she was also accused of having an affair with fellow teacher and prime suspect Graham. Facing questions from journalists, police and family, Anna said she didn’t know what happened. She was lying. Now, Anna has returned to Australia. Her only hope is Land’s End Area School, an isolated concrete wasteland perched on the cliffs.

Kidnappers grabbed Jenna in broad daylight, right in front of her children and their horrified classmates. Her family was issued an insane ransom demand: $25 million in cash and jewels, payable by the end of the school day, otherwise they’ll never see her again. As Jenna’s mother scrambles to gather the money, detectives Mo Butler and George Ortega follow the trail of the kidnappers, which will lead them through a sordid landscape of jealous lovers, broken dreamers, and twisted schemers. But every second counts, and there’s one thing Jenna Wade doesn’t have: very much time.

My fiancé brought me tea and scrambled eggs in bed that morning, and we snuggled together, talking about buying our rings, and about our perfect wedding next year. Then we headed into town. He held my hand and gazed at the ring I liked best, a smile spreading slowly over his face. Then a glass of bubbly to celebrate. I felt flushed, excited and ready for the rest of my life with the man I loved. We race to get on the train home. It screams to a halt and I run towards its open doors. Made it. I think he’s right behind me — but when I turn around, he’s gone.

England, 1914. The world is at war. Captain Hastings, injured and shaken, is invited to Styles Court to recover. It’s a grand old country house - the family home of his old friend - and a perfect haven. Or so it seems. But in the blistering summer heat, trouble is afoot. Simmering tensions are tearing the family apart, and it all comes to a head in the most horrifying way.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.