Laurie R. King

The last couple of samples from Echoes of Sherlock Holmes, and these are goodies.

Raffa

by Anne Perry

It was one of the nicest hotels in London. The dining room was suitably lush, sombre and filled with the chink of china and the delicate odours of coffee and bacon, but Marcus St. Giles was unimpressed with it. His fame as the current television Sherlock Holmes had accustomed him to such places. He would rather have eaten at a transport café, and played Hamlet, brilliantly, to a single audience. There was no passion in Sherlock Holmes, not a great deal of complexity that had not already been explored a hundred times.

He was making money, but he had lost enjoyment, purpose. It was all automatic, a caricature more than an art. There was no life in it.

“Please, sir…”

He looked up. She was standing a few feet away from him, wide eyes staring at him solemnly. She looked to be about seven or eight years old—a child! A small, thin child with long hair and clothes which did not match.

“You are Sherlock Holmes,” she said in little above a whisper.

He drew in his breath to try to explain to her that he was Marcus St. Giles, playing Sherlock Holmes on television. Sherlock Holmes was an imaginary character, not a real person. He never had been real.

But she cut him off. “Please, sir, Mr. Holmes, my mummy has been kidnapped and I need you to help me.”

 

Mrs Hudson Investigates

Tony Lee & Bevis Musso

**

Oh, you can’t resist that, can you?  From Poisoned Pen (signed), Amazon, B&N, and Audible.