Adventures From Watson's Third Box

Doctor John Watson tantalisingly informed us, in The Problem of Thor Bridge, that a box full of unpublished adventures of Sherlock Holmes had been left in the vaults of Cox & Co. of Charing Cross. However, what Watson neglected to tell us was that more than one such box existed, containing accounts of the great detective which had hitherto remained unknown, save for cryptic hints dropped by Watson in the published stories.

These adventures include two set in the Midlands county of Staffordshire: The Lichfield Murder, where Holmes and Watson investigate a particularly bloody crime in the cathedral city, and; The Bloody Steps, where Holmes is called in to hunt down a poassible ghost, but discovers the truth is even stranger and more sinister.

Hugh Ashton, recognised to be one of the leading writers of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, edited Watson's manuscripts from the first box and prepared them for publication. This formed the "Deed Box" series of adventures, with the second box forming "Dispatch-Box" series. After these two boxes originally belonging to Doctor Watson had been examined and the stories therein edited by Ashton, a third box was discovered, containing a pipe, a Persian slipper, and a battered Gladstone bag. The bag in its turn contained many notebooks. These notebooks held accounts, in Watson's almost illegible doctor's handwriting, of more cases of the most famous of all sleuths, most of which have now been edited and published in volumes of the MX Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories.

Fourteen of these adventures are brought together here in one volume for the first time.

The book also includes a foreword by eminent Sherlockian and editor of the MX Volumes, David Marcum.

The stories are traditional in style and plotting, remaining faithful to the Canonical originals, but add depth to the characters of Holmes, Watson, and those around them, while taking nothing away from the originals by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

(also available in hardcover and paperback editions)