Showing results by author "Orlando Pearson" in All Categories

Can you prove anything from statistics on death rates? On the train back to London after solving the case of the stockbroker's clerk, Holmes asks some extremely penetrating questions about Dr. Watson's medical practice in Paddington and that of Dr. Anstruther next door. The questioning is inconclusive, but the questions suddenly become relevant when official investigations are launched into death rates in Paddington and Watson is fortunate that Holmes is on hand.

Five sensational Sherlock Holmes stories by Orlando Pearson followed by three meditations hinting at the most radical theory yet about the Great Baker Street Detective. The stories include: "A Type of Infamy"; "The Fourth Student"; "A Question of Time"; and more.

Unearthed after being lost for nearly a century, at last the memoirs of Mycroft Holmes are available to the general public. In this volume we see what it is when one extraordinarily talented person is the British Government as Mycroft Holmes applies his skills in statecraft to tax evasion, royal honors, Partygate, the 1918 Armistice, and the Abdication crisis of 1936.

How does a composer make sure his works make an impact? Composer Edward Elgar wants to know and petitions Holmes. Straight after this encounter, Elgar starts on the work that is to become his masterpiece. And to maximize public interest in it, the composer and Holmes indicate that there are mysteries about its content, inspiration, and origin. On one matter, Holmes withholds an insight of his from Elgar and -- deliberately or not -- the title Enigma Variations is the result.

Holmes and Watson are seized by Edward Albert, the Prince of Wales, who wants them to find evidence that his mother is unfit to serve as queen. At Balmoral, Holmes and Watson witness the aged Queen Victoria engage in some highly questionable behavior.

It is 1909, and 20 years have passed since the great Devon adventure. Holmes is consulted by Sir Henry Baskerville’s son after a shepherd in the baronet’s clothes is found dead at the foot of a cliff. Watson is dispatched to Dartmoor to investigate and finds that the publication of his novel - controversial at the time because of the inadequacies it exposed in Holmes’s handling of the original case - has had some wholly unexpected consequences for the members of the dramatis personae of the original story.

As young men go to the trenches in their millions, they take with them A. E. Housman’s collection of poetry, A Shropshire Lad. “Easy to read in the most difficult circumstances and full of happy memories of home,” opines Mycroft Holmes. But has Housman succumbed to German influence? Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are sent to investigate and come up with a finding unexpected to them. Mycroft lets their finding pass, but Watson is then witness to some Machiavellian political machinations from Mycroft as he deals with Irish rebel Roger Casement.

After the close of The Noble Batchelor, Holmes lets his emotionless façade slip by the Baker Street fireside as he tells Watson of his very first case. Dating back to 1869, the case takes in the Thames, London Zoo, Highgate Cemetery, a poet, and a beautiful and tragic female figure.

Why is Ignatius Foley, member of parliament for Perth, so anxious to retrieve some administrative documents that have fallen out of his pocket at his fiancée’s house? His betrothed, Jean Leckie, wants to find out. And what has happened in Bulgaria that makes Mycroft so anxious to dispatch his brother there with promises of major honors for successful prosecution of the investigation? A case set in 1907 and with no parallels whatsoever to more recent events.

Watson spends half his wound pension on the turf and his gambling addiction renders him unable even to pay his half share of the rent of the rooms at Baker Street. But when one of his rare bursts of prosperity enables him to buy two strikingly good pictures from a pawnbroker, Mycroft Holmes takes a remarkable interest. And what is the meaning of the little rhyme that runs round the canvas of the painting.

It is May 1940. The British army has been routed and is awaiting its evacuation. Winston Churchill asks Holmes to stand by to provide advice on what steps to take in the face of the anticipated aerial onslaught of the Luftwaffe on British airfields. As German attacks mount, Holmes offers unpalatable advice which Churchill accepts for want of an alternative. As German attacks switch from the airfields to production facilities, Holmes provides additional detective advice on a most unexpected matter.

The first thriller about accountancy. Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective, and Mary Harris Smith, the world's only female accountancy practitioner investigate the activities of Marylebone Cole Supplies Limited. Listeners may be reminded of a more recent accountancy which ended in the downfall of one of accountancy's famous names.

Orlando Pearson, Watson's successor as the assistant of Sherlock Holmes, was entrusted by the doctor with notes on cases too controversial to publish at the time. Amongst other things these cases covered government failure to regulate the banks, excessively close links between a minister and industry, and an official cover-up of a sexual scandal at the very highest level in society.

Holmes is petitioned by the groom of the Bedlam lunatic asylum to investigate a couple who have appeared at his stables. And after the notorious winter of 1894-5, the politician Mr. Lawler, previously encountered in The Minister and the Moguls, gives Holmes a commission to investigate whether the climate is changing and whether industrialization is the cause.

Holmes investigates a major industry and finds there is more to smoke than meets the eye. Orlando Pearson, Watson's successor as the assistant of Sherlock Holmes, was entrusted by the doctor with notes on cases too controversial to publish at the time.

Gottlieb von Cramm, a German tennis star of the 1930s, petitions Holmes for help. The sportsman is being blackmailed on a matter of the utmost delicacy, and when the blackmailer reveals all to the National Socialist authorities, it is Holmes who comes to the rescue by asking Reichsmarschall, Herman Göring to intervene. But is the better than expected outcome to the case a result of Holmes’ intervention, or is Cramm’s glamourous mother keeping her own role to herself? And why does Frau von Cramm’s seem so familiar to Holmes?

It is March 1938. A print worker petitions Holmes about the disappearance of a fellow worker at the Daily Mail. Holmes investigates, and after interviews with the newspaper’s proprietor, Viscount Rothermere, and with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German ambassador, it becomes clear the missing print worker has died fulfilling a commission for the German ambassador, although it is not clear what the commission is.

Dr. Watson is in his surgery when there is an unexpected knock at the door. It is Sherlock Holmes, who explains that he has arranged a meeting with an Italian musicologist, Alberto Gentili, who has found some long-lost autograph manuscripts of the almost unknown 18th century Venetian composer, Antonio Vivaldi. Gentili explains how the manuscripts represent only half of a larger collection. He wants to find the other half before someone else finds it and disperses the collection.

The harrowing sequel to A Case of Identity as Sherlock Holmes uncovers a tale as dark as anything seen on the Ancient Greek stage.

Holmes is charged by the permanent special adviser to the prime minister, his brother Mycroft, to plot a new course for Great Britain following the country's vote in a plebiscite to secede from the Entente Cordiale. Holmes demonstrates that politics truly is an art and that all things are possible as he travels to Washington, Moscow, and Paris meeting statesmen who bear no resemblance at all to the present-day holders of the equivalent posts.