by Nick Lane
First published 2018
Sherlock Holmes broods in his Baker Street flat, lost in cocaine and melancholy as thick fog blankets London. His stupor breaks when Mary Morstan arrives with a troubling mystery. Her father disappeared a decade ago without explanation. Four years after his vanishing, she began receiving anonymous gifts each year: beautiful, valuable pearls with no message or return address. Now someone has sent her an invitation to meet face to face. The young woman asks Holmes and Watson to accompany her to this mysterious rendezvous. Holmes accepts the case, and the investigation draws them into a web involving betrayed love, a cache of stolen Indian treasure, a one-legged criminal, and a tracking dog. As the detective unravels the connections between Mary's missing father and the treasure, Watson finds himself falling for their client. The case becomes personal for both men, transforming what began as another puzzle into something that stirs even Holmes's carefully guarded emotions.
Genres: historical-fiction, adventure, mystery, crime, detective, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, personal-stakes
Setting: Baker Street, India, London
Period: 19th-century
149 pages · Paperback · Playdead Press