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.

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.

Hounded is an escape from the anxiety of reaching a half-century, written during the pandemic of 2020 and into the spring of 2021, during which comedy writer Vince Stadon experienced every film, TV, audio drama, spoken word reading, documentary, stage play, pastiche, graphic novel, animation, kids cartoon, and PC game version of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

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.

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.

Additional revelations from the despatch box of Doctor John Watson. These seven stories previously featured in various volumes of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories and other anthologies. They come together in their own collection for the first time. The Adventure of the Disappearing Prisoner The Adventure of the Drewhampton Poisoner The Adventure of the Returning Spirit The Adventure of Miss Anna Truegrace The Adventure of Mr Fairdale Hobbs The Adventure of the Conk-Singleton Forgery The Adventure of the Grand Vizier

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.

The Fen country in the autumn of 1850 is dank and drab. Catherine Greencliffe comes from the other end of England to care for a small child who has been abandoned by his mother. On the surface all seems well, but she soon becomes prey to mysterious compulsions and visions. She comes to realize that Southwell Hall holds a secret that she is not invited to share and, at last, makes a dreadful discovery.

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.

Holmes is petitioned by the groom of the Bedlam lunatic asylum to investigate a couple who have appeared at his stables. And after the notorious winter of 1894-5, the politician Mr. Lawler, previously encountered in The Minister and the Moguls, gives Holmes a commission to investigate whether the climate is changing and whether industrialization is the cause.

""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.

How can the insurance companies keep on producing record profits when the economic theories of Professor Alfred Marshall and his protégé John Maynard Keynes suggest that this should be impossible when their prices can be easily compared? The Chancellor of the Exchequer would like an answer and commissions Sherlock Holmes to find out.

It's Christmas eve at 221B Baker Street. On the stroke of midnight, a delivery arrives addressed to Sherlock Holmes. The message is a cryptogram which reveals itself to be so obtuse that it has the famous consulting detective baffled. Holmes becomes so obsessed with revealing the secret of the cypher that Watson fears for his well-being in refusing to eat or sleep. Holmes can only deduce that time is of the essence, and that a means of deciphering must be discovered which has never before been employed. Watson wonders what new adventure will emerge, should the puzzle be unraveled.

Here are a few essays about puzzlers in and about Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.

When an elephant escapes from the London Zoological Gardens, Holmes and Watson become embroiled in one of their strangest cases yet. Engaged by a jeweler in fear for his life, the trail leads Sherlock to two secret societies, each pursuing the eight ruby elephants said to unlock a vault containing the lost Nizam diamond. Standing in his way are some deadly foes: the Archangels, assassins in top hats and tailcoats, hell-bent on the murder of the great detective and the acquisition of the treasures of the realm.

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.

Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

Additional revelations from the despatch box of Doctor John Watson. These seven stories previously featured in various volumes of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories and other anthologies. They come together in their own collection for the first time. The Adventure of the Disappearing Prisoner The Adventure of the Drewhampton Poisoner The Adventure of the Returning Spirit The Adventure of Miss Anna Truegrace The Adventure of Mr Fairdale Hobbs The Adventure of the Conk-Singleton Forgery The Adventure of the Grand Vizier

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.

London. A snowy December, 1888. Sherlock Holmes, 34, is languishing and back on cocaine after a disastrous Ripper investigation. Watson can neither comfort nor rouse his friend - until a strangely encoded letter arrives from Paris. Mlle La Victoire, a beautiful French cabaret star, writes that her illegitimate son by an English lord has disappeared, and she has been attacked in the streets of Montmartre.