Donald Thomas combines his expertise as a novelist and criminal historian to give a brand-new twist to the adventures of Conan Doyle’s famous creation.

Accompanied as ever by Dr. Watson, Holmes here investigates: The alleged bigamy of King George V... The theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in 1907... The bizarre circumstances of the death of President Faure of France... Such dramas are not fiction but historical reality.

The investigations described in this volume relate the part played by the great detective in seven major crimes or scandals of the day, some of them too damaging to the monarchy, the government or the security of the nation to be fully revealed at the time.

Compiled in narrative form by Dr. Watson soon after the great detective’s death, Holmes’s notes have been kept under lock and key at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane.

Now, seventy years later, we can finally open the secret casebook of Sherlock Holmes.

Donald Thomas has published forty books, including poetry, fiction, biography and true crime. A stage-play based on his work, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, was recently produced in Wales. His biography of Robert Browning was short-listed for the Whitbread Award and he received The Gregory Award from T. S. Eliot personally for his poetry collection Points of Contact. He lives in Bath.