Showing results by author "Orlando Pearson" in All Categories

How do you make a government change its mind? And how do you recover your financial equilibrium after a bereavement? And, come to that, how do you recover your financial equilibrium after you return from the apparent dead when you have asked for no mention of your return be made in the press and so no one knows that your detective agency is back in business?

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.

Another encounter with Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, hereditary king of Bohemia, and Holmes’ commissioner in Sherlock Holmes and a Scandal in Bohemia. The king is no longer with his first wife and has organized a ball at the Savoy Hotel in London to choose a new bride. But the lady who caught his eye fled as the clock of St. Martin in the Fields church struck midnight leaving only a dancing slipper behind. The trail takes Holmes and Watson to Venice and Holmes discloses a shocking truth to Watson that nearly ruptures their friendship.

Unearthed after being lost for nearly a century, at last the memoirs of Mycroft Holmes are available to the general public. In this volume we see what it is when one extraordinarily talented person is the British Government as Mycroft Holmes applies his skills in statecraft to tax evasion, royal honors, Partygate, the 1918 Armistice, and the Abdication crisis of 1936.

Watson spends half his wound pension on the turf and his gambling addiction renders him unable even to pay his half share of the rent of the rooms at Baker Street. But when one of his rare bursts of prosperity enables him to buy two strikingly good pictures from a pawnbroker, Mycroft Holmes takes a remarkable interest. And what is the meaning of the little rhyme that runs round the canvas of the painting.

It is 1909, and 20 years have passed since the great Devon adventure. Holmes is consulted by Sir Henry Baskerville’s son after a shepherd in the baronet’s clothes is found dead at the foot of a cliff. Watson is dispatched to Dartmoor to investigate and finds that the publication of his novel - controversial at the time because of the inadequacies it exposed in Holmes’s handling of the original case - has had some wholly unexpected consequences for the members of the dramatis personae of the original story.

Five sensational Sherlock Holmes stories by Orlando Pearson followed by three meditations hinting at the most radical theory yet about the Great Baker Street Detective. The stories include: "A Type of Infamy"; "The Fourth Student"; "A Question of Time"; and more.

The first thriller about accountancy. Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective, and Mary Harris Smith, the world's only female accountancy practitioner investigate the activities of Marylebone Cole Supplies Limited. Listeners may be reminded of a more recent accountancy which ended in the downfall of one of accountancy's famous names.

As young men go to the trenches in their millions, they take with them A. E. Housman’s collection of poetry, A Shropshire Lad. “Easy to read in the most difficult circumstances and full of happy memories of home,” opines Mycroft Holmes. But has Housman succumbed to German influence? Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are sent to investigate and come up with a finding unexpected to them. Mycroft lets their finding pass, but Watson is then witness to some Machiavellian political machinations from Mycroft as he deals with Irish rebel Roger Casement.

Can you prove anything from statistics on death rates? On the train back to London after solving the case of the stockbroker's clerk, Holmes asks some extremely penetrating questions about Dr. Watson's medical practice in Paddington and that of Dr. Anstruther next door. The questioning is inconclusive, but the questions suddenly become relevant when official investigations are launched into death rates in Paddington and Watson is fortunate that Holmes is on hand.

Holmes and Watson are seized by Edward Albert, the Prince of Wales, who wants them to find evidence that his mother is unfit to serve as queen. At Balmoral, Holmes and Watson witness the aged Queen Victoria engage in some highly questionable behavior.

It is May 1940. The British army has been routed and is awaiting its evacuation. Winston Churchill asks Holmes to stand by to provide advice on what steps to take in the face of the anticipated aerial onslaught of the Luftwaffe on British airfields. As German attacks mount, Holmes offers unpalatable advice which Churchill accepts for want of an alternative. As German attacks switch from the airfields to production facilities, Holmes provides additional detective advice on a most unexpected matter.

Louis Westhouse, Windibank's employer, commissions Holmes to investigate Windibank's peculiar behavior in the office. The day after Holmes completes his investigation, Inspector Gregson brings news of three deaths at Windibank's house. Gregson and Holmes investigate but cannot explain the deaths. It is only when the corpses are taken away and the blinds are drawn that Holmes elucidates some truly grotesque events.

It is March 1938. A print worker petitions Holmes about the disappearance of a fellow worker at the Daily Mail. Holmes investigates, and after interviews with the newspaper’s proprietor, Viscount Rothermere, and with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German ambassador, it becomes clear the missing print worker has died fulfilling a commission for the German ambassador, although it is not clear what the commission is.

Dr. Watson is in his surgery when there is an unexpected knock at the door. It is Sherlock Holmes, who explains that he has arranged a meeting with an Italian musicologist, Alberto Gentili, who has found some long-lost autograph manuscripts of the almost unknown 18th century Venetian composer, Antonio Vivaldi. Gentili explains how the manuscripts represent only half of a larger collection. He wants to find the other half before someone else finds it and disperses the collection.

The harrowing sequel to A Case of Identity as Sherlock Holmes uncovers a tale as dark as anything seen on the Ancient Greek stage.

How does a composer make sure his works make an impact? Composer Edward Elgar wants to know and petitions Holmes. Straight after this encounter, Elgar starts on the work that is to become his masterpiece. And to maximize public interest in it, the composer and Holmes indicate that there are mysteries about its content, inspiration, and origin. On one matter, Holmes withholds an insight of his from Elgar and -- deliberately or not -- the title Enigma Variations is the result.

Endlich wird er von seinem Groβneffen, Meisterdetektiv Sherlock Holmes, vorgestellt – Sherrinford Holmes, Fagottspieler, Linguist, Diplomat, und urspüngliche Inspirazion des Meisterspurhundes. Und Sherrinford Holmes ist nicht die einzige wichtige Person, die wir in dieser Geschichte, die Holmes Watson vor dem Kamin in Baker Street erzählt, kenenlernern.

Mit diesen Worten fängt Franz Kafkas Meisterwerk, Der Prozess an. Das Werk wurde in 1914/5 geschrieben und erst 1925, ein Jahr nach dem Tod des Autors, veröffentlicht. Und in den folgenden Jahrzehnten ist es niemandem gelungen zu enträtseln, was die Geschichte bedeutet. Aber es ist bis jetzt auch niemandem eingefallen, diesen Auftrag an Sherlock Holmes zu vergeben.

Holmes is charged by the permanent special adviser to the prime minister, his brother Mycroft, to plot a new course for Great Britain following the country's vote in a plebiscite to secede from the Entente Cordiale. Holmes demonstrates that politics truly is an art and that all things are possible as he travels to Washington, Moscow, and Paris meeting statesmen who bear no resemblance at all to the present-day holders of the equivalent posts.