Daniel D. Victor

Sherlock Holmes examines the body of a murdered scrubwoman that lies on the floor of the South Kensington Museum of Art. But it is not a real corpse he looks at, for those remains have been removed by the coroner. The body Holmes studies appears in a drawing of the murder scene precisely rendered by an American art student. The drawing leads Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the artist-a young Frank Norris before he turns his talents to writing- across the...

One moment the lovely young woman was walking through the Battle of Hastings exhibition at the British Museum; the next, she lay dead on the checkered museum floor, a Norman arrow protruding from her breast. Inspector Lestrade believed he had solved the mystery, but almost immediately recognized that Scotland Yard needed the help of Sherlock Holmes. From London to the Lake District, the master detective, along with his colleague Dr. Watson and recently-met...

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...

"A psychological account of a crime" - that's how Fyodor Dostoyevsky described his novel Crime and Punishment, which tells of two horrific axe 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 axe-blade. To Scotland Yard, the crimes are murders to solve. To Sherlock Holmes, they present an intriguing puzzle. But to the literary man,...

The light of an open doorway beckons through the mist of a London Particular, one of those smothering fogs for which turn-of-the-century London was famous. But in reality - as Sherlock Holmes soon discovers - though the doorway does indeed offer respite from the fog, it also leads to the gruesome remains of a double-murder. Two corpses, a stolen diamond necklace, a Russian connection, and a dandified American writer who pals around with denizens of...

The eleven stories gathered together in these two volumes share their own common feature. All have connections to the world of belles letters, the world of literature - some to celebrated authors in particular, others to themes or stories associated with specific writers ... Let others plumb this collection for more subtle themes. From Maupassant to Stevenson to Fitzgerald, the authorial giants who populate these pages are explanation enough for its...