The Secret Cases Of Sherlock Holmes.

DONALD THOMAS

Publication: Macmillan, 1997, London

First edition. Fine in dust jacket. What if Sherlock Holmes did not retire in 1903 to a life of bee-keeping in Sussex but instead returned as an occasional consulting detective in some of the Edwardian era’s most baffling, actual cases? Author Donald Thomas drags the detective out of retirement to investigate seven mysteries closely based on historical fact, from the alleged bigamy of George V to the theft of the Irish crown jewels from an impregnable strongroom. Holmes journeys with a grumbling Watson to Paris to investigate the suspicious death of President Faure of France after the Dreyfus affair. He also books passage to Yokohama for the second of two cases of arsenic poisoning, and then allies himself with the pyrotechnical barrister Sir Edward Marshall Hall for two cases closer to home.