Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon
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4.6 • 22 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson investigate a haunting that’s anything but merry in this cozy Christmas mystery from a New York Times-bestselling author!
London, 1890: Days before Christmas, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a distressed new client, Eve Allerthorpe. The eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty, Eve believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit.
Eve’s late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick—and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What’s more, she’s received mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick’s calling card.
Eve stands to inherit a fortune if she is sound in mind, but it seems that something—or someone—is threatening her sanity. Holmes and Watson travel to the Allerthorpe family seat at Fellscar Keep to investigate, but soon discover there is more to the case than at first appeared. Another spirit haunts the family, and when a member of the household is found dead, the companions realize that no one is beyond suspicion . . .
Follow the trail of clues as Holmes and Watson unravel this strange Christmas mystery in this delightful, pitch-perfect ode to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Great Detective!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In December 1890, Eve Allerthorpe, the 20-year-old heroine of this stellar Sherlock Holmes pastiche from Lovegrove (Sherlock Holmes: The Labyrinth of Death), travels from her family's estate in Yorkshire, Fellscar Keep, to London, where she has the good fortune to run into Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Eve is slated to come into a substantial financial legacy on Christmas Eve, her 21st birthday, if she is of sound mind, but her sanity is in peril, as she explains to Holmes and Watson. Eve is troubled by reported sightings of a ghost resembling her late mother, who suffered from mental illness, as well as signs that a legendary monster her mother used to tell her about, the Black Thurrick, is real. Birch twigs have been left for Eve, the very item that the Black Thurrick, a dark inversion of Father Christmas, supposedly left for bad children instead of presents. In addition, Eve has glimpsed a figure outside her home resembling the description of the Black Thurrick. Holmes and Watson travel to Fellscar Keep to investigate. Canonical characterizations complement the ingenious plot. Lovegrove joins Denis Smith and Philip Purser-Hallard in the top rank of authors of traditional Holmes pastiches.
