Showing results by author "Katy Gardner" in All Categories

1888 was a busy year for Holmes and Watson. If Dr. Watson is to be believed, The Sign of Four, A Scandal in Bohemia, and The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor all took place in this year (I would also argue that The Valley of Fear is set in the same year — ed.). As if that weren’t enough, 1888 is remembered (albeit infamously) as the year that Jack the Ripper unleashed an autumn of terror on the citizens of London. While there are no Holmes vs. the Ripper stories in this volume, the authors of the later stories have all alluded to the atmosphere of terror permeating Holmes’s London at that time.

As a scientist, Sherlock Holmes would have certainly been familiar with the famous dictum attributed to Aristotle: Nature abhors a vacuum. In that same vein, fans of the Great Detective must look at 1885 and 1886 and see a somewhat similar void.

In the last year, Mel Stenning's seven-year-old daughter, Poppy, has had to get used to a new step-father, a new baby, and a new home. During a game of hide and seek, Poppy disappears, and Mel's new husband is suspected of having something to do with it. Mel also discovers that, the day before, the police had accused him of murder.