M y fascination with mysteries began with Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. I first read them when I was in elementary school. But writing my own Sherlock Holmes story? That didn’t happen until I was in my thirties (Sherlock Holmes & the Volcano Horror) and didn’t really become “a thing” until I was in my (gasp!) seventies.

During the Pandemic years of 2020-22, when it was impossible to get publishers to look at manuscript novels, I turned to the short-story form, and gave Holmes five new adventures that were all swiftly published in anthologies. They're true to Conan Doyle's originals: set in Victorian Europe, and narrated by Dr. Watson. In these fictions, wherever historical people are characters, and actual places are visited, I've kept them consistent with what they were like in real life, and included their photographs in the book.

In The Sign of Five, you will discover:

WHY the royal family of Hawaii needs to consult Sherlock Holmes. (The God of War)

WHAT is happening in a laboratory on an Amsterdam canal. (The Adventure of Baron Maupertuis)

WHERE, inside a famous London theater, a saboteur is hiding. (The Adventure of the Merryman and His Maid)

WHEN a bomb will go off in an international fairground. (The Colonial Exhibition)

HOW a most unusual detective solves a murder before Holmes does. (The Bookseller's Donkey)

The Sign of Five is available from amazon.com. The retail price is $25.00, but for a limited time there's a 5% book-launch discount for $23.71.