English Private Detectives

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE BELT BUCKLE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST WAS MURDERED AND THE CROWN JEWELS MAY BE AT RISK. A young street urchin, one of the Baker Street Irregulars, discovers a man's belt and buckle under a bush in Hyde Park. He brings it to Sherlock Holmes, hoping for a reward. The buckle is unique and stunning, gleaming turquoise stones set in exquisitely carved silver; a masterpiece from the native American west. A body of an American Indian is found in a hotel room in Mayfair. Scotland Yard seeks the help of Sherlock Holmes in solving the murder.

A dark, smog-filled London doesn’t seem very Christmassy, or exciting, but then Posie Parker, London’s premier female Private Detective, receives an urgent call from one of her oldest friends; Rufus, Earl of Cardigeon. Summoned to ‘The Mermaid’, a reputedly haunted hotel in Rye, on the Sussex Coast, in the heart of smuggling country, Posie, together with her husband, Richard, finds her old friend in a real state.

The first hard-boiled detective, Race Williams, runs up against the Klan in his premiere adventure, which leads him to fast and tragic action. Plus two other early Daly hard-boiled classics: The False Burton Combs and Dolly. Story number one in the Race Williams series. Carroll John Daly (1889-1958) was the creator of the first hard-boiled private eye story, predating Dashiell Hammett's first Continental Op story by several months.

In The Five Orange Pips, a young Sussex gentleman named John Openshaw tells the strange story of his uncle Elias Openshaw, who came back to England after living in the United States as a planter in Florida and serving as a colonel in the Confederate Army. His uncle begins receiving threatening letters inscribed “KKK” and including five orange pips. He is killed shortly thereafter. The job of unraveling this sordid transatlantic mystery falls to Holmes and his trusty companion, Dr. Watson.

When Themba Malope's career fast-tracks its way to promotion, this Alexandra resident cannot resist the temptation, although painfully aware of why the promotion is being offered. He wants to make a difference to his world. However, will his career move give him the satisfaction he craves? Moving to nearby Sandton, the world in which he is now expected to live is a vast contrast to his home in the black township. There are no slums, there are no problems of sanitation. It's a whole different world.

Sherlock Holmes and Watson, on a research trip in a university town, are approached by a professor. The professor believes someone has entered his office and seen, and perhaps copied, the examination papers he is to administer the next day. Holmes begins by narrowing down the suspects to three students who live nearby. After studying several innocuous pieces of evidence, he believes he has identified the culprit. All that remains is to elicit the confession.

A young woman explains to Holmes that an unknown man has been following her by bicycle on her weekly trips from the house where she works to the railroad station. Having met two friends of her recently deceased uncle, one of the men, Carruthers, hires her as a governess and later proposes to her. The young woman, being already engaged, declines. The other man, Woodley, disturbs her with rude behavior and romantic advances. Holmes connects the clues and arrives in time to solve the mystery of the unknown cyclist and to save Smith after she is kidnapped by Woodley.

A Norfolk country squire from a reputable family hires Holmes to help him learn who has been sending him weird encoded messages, in the form of dancing stick figures, that are disturbing his wife. Upon collecting enough of the messages, Holmes cracks the code. He returns to Norfolk to present his findings only to find that his client has been met with tragedy. Using forensic science and his inimitable powers of deduction, Holmes is able to assist the Norfolk authorities and identify the criminal.

This story is perhaps best known as the first time we meet Mycroft, Inspector Holmes’ older brother. Mycroft’s neighbour, Mr Meles, has sought his help, after being asked to act as interpreter for a sinister series of events. It is up to Sherlock to solve the case for Mycroft and the mysterious Mr Meles. Robert Hardy, known to many for playing Cornelius Fudge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is the expert reader bringing this thrilling story to vivid life.

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow, and is the second and final appearance of Mycroft Holmes. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" fourteenth in a list of his nineteen favourite Sherlock Holmes stories. The monotony of thick smog-shrouded London is broken by a sudden visit from Holmes' brother Mycroft.

The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge is one of the fifty-six Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. One of eight stories in the volume His Last Bow, it is a lengthy, two-part story consisting of "The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles" and "The Tiger of San Pedro", which on original publication in The Strand bore the collective title of "A Reminiscence of Mr. Sherlock Holmes". Holmes is visited by a perturbed proper English gentleman, John Scott Eccles, who wishes to discuss something "grotesque".

FEAT DESC

Late on a foggy November afternoon, a desperate young woman arrives at Baker Street, imploring Sherlock Holmes to help her. She is terrified about what may be going on inside a secretive London refuge for Russian exiles, where her sister works. Thus begins a frightening case which deeply strains both Holmes and Watson because of the dreadful consequences of failure and the mystifying nature of the forces against them.

Five gripping short stories of Arsène Lupin, one of the most famous and intriguing figures of French detective literature. He was created by Maurice Leblanc, a brilliant journalist, writer and storyteller, and is the hero of a total of 24 books, novels and short stories alike. The fictional gentleman-thief is a master of disguise, a criminal genius and a moral figure well-set in righting a few wrongs himself when Justice can't be bothered.

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.

Lord 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.

The King of Bohemia engages Holmes to recover an indiscreet photograph showing him with the renowned beauty, adventuress and opera singer Irene Adler – the revelation of which would derail his marriage to a daughter of the King of Scandinavia. In disguise, Holmes witnesses Adler marry the man she truly loves, then by means of an elaborate stratagem discovers the photograph's hiding place. But when Holmes and the king return to retrieve the photo, they find Adler has fled the country with it, leaving behind a letter for Holmes and a portrait of herself for the King.

The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter, 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. It was originally published in The Strand Magazine in 1904 with illustrations by Sidney Paget. Mr. Cyril Overton of Trinity College, Cambridge, comes to Holmes seeking his help in Godfrey Staunton's disappearance. Staunton is the key man on Overton's rugby union team (who plays at the three-quarters position, hence the story's title) and they will not win the important match tomorrow against Oxford if Staunton cannot be found.

Neville St. Clair, a respectable businessman, has disappeared and his wife claims she saw him at the upper window of an opium den. Rushing upstairs to the room she found only a beggar who denied any knowledge of St. Clair – whose clothes are later found in the room, and his coat, laden with coins, in the River Thames outside the window. The beggar is arrested, but a few days later St. Clair's wife receives a letter from her husband. Holmes concludes, then proves, that the beggar is actually St. Clair in disguise; he confesses that he has been leading a double life as a beggar, making more money that way than in his nominal work.

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".