The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes

Lyndsay Faye

Mar 2017 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

This collection of short mysteries by the international-bestselling author of Dust and Shadow “belongs on the top shelf with the very best of Doyle’s” (Nicholas Meyer, author of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution).
 
Inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, Edgar Award–finalist Lyndsay Faye has masterfully woven these quintessential characters into her own works of fiction—from her acclaimed debut novel, Dust and Shadow, to a series of short stories for the Strand Magazine, whose predecessor published the first Sherlock Holmes story in 1892.
 
The best of Faye’s Sherlockian tales, including two new works, are brought together in a collection that spans the character’s career, from self-taught upstart to lauded detective, both before and after he faked his own death over a Swiss waterfall in 1894. In “The Lowther Park Mystery,” the unsociable Holmes is forced to attend a garden party at the request of his politician brother and improvises a bit of theater to foil a conspiracy against the government. “The Adventure of the Thames Tunnel” brings Holmes’s attention to the murder of a jewel thief in the middle of an underground railway passage.
 
With Holmes and Watson encountering all manner of ungrateful relatives, phony psychologists, wronged wives, outright villains, and even a peculiar species of deadly red leech, The Whole Art of Detection is a must-read for any fan of historical crime fiction.
 
“If Lyndsay Faye’s byline weren’t on the cover, readers might deduce that the Sherlock Holmes mysteries in The Whole Art of Detection actually came from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” —David Martindale, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Ratings and reviews

This is the cleverest and best-written collection of Sherlock Holmes stories I've read, including the Conan Doyle originals and dozens of other imitators.

About the author

Lyndsay Faye is an actor and an author of mysteries. Raised in the Pacific Northwest, she spent several years acting professionally in the Bay Area, finding a particular niche in period roles, and growing surprisingly comfortable in a whalebone corset. In 2005 Faye moved to New York City, where she put her acting career on hold and began writing fiction. Her first novel, Dust and Shadow (2009), draws on her experience with Victorian culture to portray the Jack the Ripper killings through the eyes of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Dr. Watson.
 
While living in New York, Faye became interested in the rough-and-tumble early history of the city’s police department. The Gods of Gotham (2012) and Seven for a Secret (2013) both star ex-bartender Timothy Wilde, a man as tough as the city streets.
 
Faye lives and writes in New York and is currently working on the third Timothy Wilde novel.