Showing results for "orlando" in Crime Fiction

Holmes and Watson at the darkest place on earth in April 1945.

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.

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's intervention, or is Cramm's glamourous mother keeping her own role to herself?

How can the insurance companies keep on producing record profits when the economic theories of Professor Alfred Marshall and his protégé John Maynard Keynes suggest that this should be impossible when their prices can be easily compared? The Chancellor of the Exchequer would like an answer and commissions Sherlock Holmes to find out.

In May 1941, Hitler's Deputy, Rudolf Heβ flew solo to Great Britain. The reason for his flight remained a mystery throughout the rest of the War as he brought no new peace proposals, provided no new insight into Hitler's plans, and did not claim political asylum. In May 1945 and with the war almost at an end, the British Government must decide whether to send the frequently overwrought Heβ back to Germany to face trial on war crimes charges.

Holmes meets Joseph Haydn in London and the two form an instant bond. This encounter and a later one with Haydn's young acquaintance, Beethoven, assume a new importance when Holmes and Watson travel to Vienna on a diplomatic mission and are consulted by Constanze Mozart, widow of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

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.

Holmes is consulted by Mr Devine on an unusual matter. Mr Devine has apprehended two malefactors in a well-watered garden in the Middle East and is unsure what is an appropriate form of retribution to impose. Holmes, Watson, and Mr Devine discuss the problem at length before arriving at a solution which satisfies all of them. Orlando Pearson himself then pens an essay setting out a radical theory about Sherlock Holmes and this theory is given further substance in an extraordinary fragment of Dr Watson’s writing found in the Public Record Office long after Watson’s death.

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.

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.

How do you make a government change its mind? And how do you recover your financial equilibrium after a bereavement? And, come to that, how do you recover your financial equilibrium after you return from the apparent dead when you have asked for no mention of your return be made in the press and so no one knows that your detective agency is back in business?