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.

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.

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.

""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.

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.

A breakdown in the strategic balance during the last decade of the Cold War prompts the Kremlin into launching an elaborate plan to insert a "dirty bomb" in the island of Manhattan, and blow it off the face of the Earth in in the event of nuclear war. Marlon Berkowitz, a retired special forces colonel, is selected by the U.S. State Department of Defense to shape and lead The Quadrille, a shadow-network of expendable undercover operatives tasked with the elimination of all Soviet nuclear saboteurs operating on U.S. soil.

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.

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.

Holmes meets Joseph Haydn in London and the two form an instant bond. This encounter and a later one with Haydn's young acquaintance, Beethoven, assume a new importance when Holmes and Watson travel to Vienna on a diplomatic mission and are consulted by Constanze Mozart, widow of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

In real life, 221B Baker Street is the home of a bank. When fans send letters to Sherlock Holmes, bank employee Addy Zhuang, known as "Sherlock's Secretary," replies. One day, the bank is robbed, but the thieves only take three letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes. The police conclude it was all a harmless prank, but Addy suspects something more malicious is happening.

When Mrs. Hudson's young nephew, Ralph, decides to go to Paris and become an artist, his mother is distraught. She enlists Mrs. Hudson's assistance to try and persuade him to quit and return home. In Paris, the sisters soon find themselves caught up in the whirling fin-de-siècle world of bohemians and anarchists. But then the discovery of the mutilated body of a beautiful young artists’ model in the sinister catacombs of the city puts Ralph under suspicion of her murder…

Why does Irene Adler, mistress of newspaper tycoon, Robert Munroe, lock herself into a cupboard several times a day? The antipodean magnate wants to know. And why is former Prime Minister, Charles Sedgefield, causing delays to the publication of a report on a recent Middle East war? As a representative of the British government, Mycroft wants to know.

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.”

Jenny sits in the same seat on the same train every week, seeing familiar faces come and go. Until a chance encounter shatters her world. Sixteen years ago, Jenny survived a traumatic ordeal that left her best friend, Susie, missing and presumed dead. The world has its theories about what happened to Susie Patterson, and one of those theories points the finger at Jenny. Now she lives a quiet life, volunteering at a crisis helpline while trying to deal with her own anxiety and the true crime fans obsessed with finding her missing friend.

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.

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.

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.

Within this volume you will find a collection of previously unpublished accounts by John H. Watson, M.D. that take Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson from London into the home counties and the south coast in the pursuit of villains and justice.

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.

Sherlock Holmes: Stranger Than Fiction imagines the Great Detective receiving the most unique visitors ever to 221B Baker Street in 13 all-new stories.

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: 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!