Private Detective Fiction

After six long months with no new cases for her Edge of the World Detective Agency, Donna ‘Deadly’ Nightshade jumps at the chance to spend a weekend undercover on St Michael’s Mount. With seven high profile attendees – including the Home Secretary – Donna doesn’t expect much tension. But as a storm descends on the tidal island, and they’re cut off from the rest of the world, friends turn to enemies and before the rain has ceased it’s not just one murder Donna has to worry about – it’s two.

The Adventure of the Dying Detective, in some editions simply titled The Dying Detective (first published 1913), is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Together with seven other stories, it is collected as His Last Bow (published 1917). Dr. Watson is called to tend Holmes, who is apparently dying of a rare tropical disease, Tapanuli fever, contracted while he was on a case. Watson is shocked, not having heard about his friend's illness. Mrs. Hudson says that Holmes has neither eaten nor drunk anything in three days.

When Howard Moon Deer's girlfriend Aria storms from his cabin in the middle of the night, he just considers it another conflict in their tempestuous relationship. But when he finds her Jeep abandoned down the road with no sign of her nearby, his instincts lead him on an investigation that uncovers the dark underbelly of a trendy southwestern town.

C.T. Ferguson spent years as a hacker. He lived in Hong Kong, working against the Chinese government. Then they found him, threw him in jail, and eventually kicked him out. In Baltimore, C.T. sets himself up as a private investigator. Then, Alice walks in. She’s sure her husband is cheating on her. C.T. looks into it, but isn’t convinced. He soon discovers Alice has serious problems of her own. When Alice’s troubles get even worse, C.T. finds his own life in danger. With a liar for a client and enforcers hounding him, can C.T. prevent his first case from becoming his last?

Hours after throwing a third birthday party for their twins Kathy and Kelly in their Connecticut home, Margaret and Steve Frawley return home from a dinner in New York to discover the police in the house, their daughters missing, and an eight million dollar ransom note. The Frawleys meet the kidnapper's demands, but the abandoned car they're led to contains only Kelly, the body of the driver, and a suicide note, saying he had inadvertently killed Kathy and dumped her body in the ocean.

Thordric a toujours entendu dire que ses pouvoirs magiques représentent un danger et qu’il ne doit jamais s’en servir. Et à Dinia, tous les demi-mages sont vus de la même manière: leurs pouvoirs inquiètent et paraissent incontrôlables.

The Adventure of the Devil's Foot is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow. Doyle ranked The Adventure of the Devil's Foot ninth in his list of his twelve favorite Holmes stories. Holmes and Dr. Watson find themselves at Poldhu in Cornwall one spring for the former's health, but the holiday ends with a bizarre event. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, a local gentleman, and Mr. Roundhay, the local vicar, come to Holmes to report that Tregennis's two brothers have gone insane, and his sister has died.

The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of the eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow, and one of the few stories in which for much of the plot Watson must act alone and try his best with Holmes left in the background. Holmes sends Dr. Watson to Lausanne to investigate Lady Frances Carfax's disappearance since he himself is too busy in London. Lady Frances is a lone, unwed woman denied a rich inheritance on account of her sex.

The Adventure of the Red Circle is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is included in the anthology His Last Bow. Mrs. Warren, a landlady, comes to 221B Baker Street with some questions about her lodger. A youngish, heavily bearded man, who spoke good but accented English who came to her and offered double her usual rent on the condition that he get the room on his own terms. He went out the first night that he was there, and came back after midnight when the rest of the household had gone to bed.

The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard brings Holmes a mysterious problem about a man who shatters plaster busts of Napoleon. One was shattered in Morse Hudson's shop, and two others, sold by Hudson to a Dr. Barnicot, were smashed after the doctor's house and branch office had been burgled. Nothing else was taken. In the former case, the bust was taken outside before being broken.

The Adventure of Black Peter is a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle. This tale is in the collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes, but was published originally in 1904 in the Strand Magazine and Collier's. Forest Row in the Weald is the scene of a harpoon murder, and a young police inspector, Stanley Hopkins, asks Holmes, whom he admires, for help. Holmes has already determined that it would take a great deal of strength and skill to run a man through with a harpoon and embed it in the wall behind him.

The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes and was published in 1904. Holmes is hired by the débutante Lady Eva Blackwell to retrieve compromising letters from a blackmailer: Milverton, who causes Holmes more revulsion than any of the 50-odd murderers in his career. Milverton is "the king of blackmailers". He demands £7,000 (over £800,000 in 2015) for the letters, which if given to third parties would cause a scandal that would end Lady Eva's marriage engagement.

The Final Problem is a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring his detective character Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in Strand Magazine under the title "The Adventure of the Final Problem" in December 1893. It appears in book form as part of the collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. This story, set in 1891, introduced Holmes's archenemy, the criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty. Conan Doyle later ranked The Final Problem fourth on his personal list of the twelve best Holmes stories.

The Greek Interpreter, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. The story was originally serialised in Strand Magazine in 1893. This story introduces Holmes's elder brother Mycroft. Doyle ranked The Greek Interpreter seventeenth in a list of his nineteen favourite Sherlock Holmes stories.

The Resident Patient, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Resident Patient" eighteenth in a list of his nineteen favourite Sherlock Holmes stories. Doctor Percy Trevelyan brings Holmes an unusual problem. Having been a brilliant student but a poor man, Dr. Trevelyan has found himself a participant in an unusual business arrangement.

FEAT DESCLord Robert St. Simon's new American bride, Hatty Doran, has disappeared almost immediately after the wedding. The servants had prevented an old love interest of his from forcing her way into the wedding breakfast, Hatty had been seen in whispered conversation with her maid, and Inspector Lestrade arrives with the news that Hatty's wedding dress and ring have been found floating in the Serpentine. Holmes quickly solves the mystery, locating Hatty at a hotel with a mysterious, "common-looking" man who had picked up her dropped bouquet after the ceremony.

An engineer, Victor Hatherley, attends Dr Watson's surgery after his thumb is chopped off, and recounts his tale to Watson and Holmes. Hatherley had been hired for 50 guineas to repair a machine he was told compressed Fuller's earth into bricks. Hatherley was told to keep the job confidential, and was transported to the job in a carriage with frosted glass, to keep the location secret. He was shown the press, but on closer inspection discovered a "crust of metallic deposit" on the press, and he suspected it was not being used for compressing earth.

A banker asks Holmes to investigate after a "Beryl Coronet" entrusted to him is damaged at his home. Awakened by noise, he had found his son, Arthur, holding the damaged coronet. Arthur refuses to speak, neither admitting guilt nor explaining himself. Footprints in the snow outside the house tell Holmes that the banker's niece had conspired with a blackguard to steal the coronet; Arthur had discovered the crime in progress and the coronet had been damaged during his struggle to prevent it being stolen. He had refused to tell his father the truth of the crime because of his love for his cousin.

An unsolved case from DCI Battle's past returns to haunt him when it seems that a killer from over a decade ago has struck again. Daisy Riddle went missing fifteen years ago and Battle failed to keep his promise to bring her home. Now, her dead body has been discovered. What happened to her, and where has she been all this time? Battle must overcome his guilt in order to catch Daisy's killer, a task that becomes desperate when another girl is taken.

The Great Detective, by prominent Sherlock Holmes Society of London member Roger Johnson, offers the Holmesian another perspective on the beloved Canon. From a surrealist perspective, we find here a different and refreshing approach. We are transported to another time through the warmth of an English public house and immediately transfixed by the fascinating voices of those who contributed to the name Sherlock Holmes. This is a must listen for all those worshipers of the great detective.