True Crime Detective

A delightful and salacious debut novel about the frightful world of high school, SATs, the college essay, and the Common Application—and how getting in is getting in the way of growing up. Tiger mothers, eat your hearts out. Anne the ""application whisperer"" is the golden ticket to success...

London 1901. The city is in the grip of "monkey man mania". Intrepid explorer Drake Patterson has caused a media storm following his astonishing discovery of a frozen ancient man in the remote Himalayan Mountains. This primal man has been triumphantly transported back to England as proof of the missing link in evolutionary theory. The upcoming auction of the specimen causes a stir amongst academics and the board of the British Museum.

Sherlock Holmes is probably the most famous detective in the world. The tales of his exploits have been seen in magazines, books, television screens, the movies and even in computer games. And yet, there is a mysterious side to this fictional character that has eluded and yet drawn us for decades.

Nel 1850 Charles Dickens firma ben tre articoli riguardanti la vita e il lavoro del detective (figura nuovissima, a quei tempi, risalendo la creazione del Detective Branch di Londra a solamente otto anni prima). In quell'anno, alcuni fra i maggiori investigatori inglesi accettano di incontrarsi nella redazione di Household Words, la rivista diretta dallo stesso Dickens, per rispondere alle sue domande. Fra loro, immancabilmente, anche il grande Charles Frederick Field (1805-1874), amico personale dello scrittore.