Given Sherlock Holmes' protracted sojourn in Tibet, is it any surprise that he was aware of Tantric sexuality, enabling him to reconstruct a mystery scarcely publishable at the time ('The Treasure of the Black Taj')? Or that its sequel should have involved him in the erotic undercurrents of the contemporary art world ('The Last Pre-Raphaelite')? When Watson in Paris saved Edward VII from assassination ('The Order of Charlemagne'), how did this involve Holmes with a long-ago lover of whom the good doctor — though given repeated clues to her existence - seems to have been unaware ('The Mass of the Presanctified')? To what end was Baker Street visited by Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, and in which work of the latter is the fact referred to ('The Kiss of Judas')?

In what manner did the refined sensibility of the fin de siècle mutate into the mindless slaughter of the Great War ('The Troytown Murder')? Meanwhile, what awareness of Celtic antecedents is intimated by the author, not only away from the Holmes canon, but also within ('The Green Man's Chapel')? For what purpose did the protagonist encounter Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm ('Blood and Iron'); or, in later years, an upstart agitator with blank eyes and toothbrush moustache ('Twilight in Babylon')? The episodes are interconnected, and woven into a novelistic unity out of which emerge a new Holmes and a new Watson, though rooted firmly in the canonical tales, and ultimately in the personal imperatives of Arthur Conan Doyle ('The Skull of Holbein').

Orange Pip Books is the sister imprint for MX Publishing. At Orange Pip, we embark on a literary journey unlike any other, specializing in the quirky, inclusive, and diverse narratives that breathe new life into the Holmes universe.