Before Watson

It is Spring, 1874, and twenty-year-old Sherlock Holmes is a lonely, mopey, friendless Oxford student. He attends classes and spends countless solitary hours conducting chemical experiments, reading, and playing his violin. Suddenly, his life changes because of a serendipitous moment on campus. While walking on the grounds of the university and practicing fencing moves with his foil, he encounters Victor Trevor and his sweetheart, Poppy Stamford, younger sister of the man who will one day introduce Sherlock to Dr. John Watson. Having just attended the final rowing contest of Eights Week, Victor and Poppy are also walking with her bull terrier. When the dog decides he doesn't like the looks of Sherlock, he sinks his teeth into Sherlock's ankle. This dog bite incident becomes a life-changing event for all of them. Through his new friendship with Victor Trevor and encouraged by Victor's father to use his genius for detective work, Sherlock discovers his uncanny abilities and a constellation of unfamiliar emotions as he and Poppy are thrust not only into a dangerous investigation into England's notorious baby-farming industry but into the perilous realm of young romance. Be an eyewitness to the emergence of how Sherlock became the man and the legend we know today….

It is 1878, and Dr. Poppy Stamford has reluctantly rekindled her relationship with Sherlock Holmes. Though it has been almost four years since they parted on uneasy terms and he continues to suppress his feelings for her, they are still intrigued and inspired-and frustrated-by each other. When her beloved uncle is arrested in relation to a series of murders near the British Museum, Poppy and the burgeoning detective set out to find the evidence to set him free. Can they track down the real killer in time to save Uncle Ormond from the rope? In the latest adventure of Poppy Stamford and Sherlock Holmes, the two not only uncover secret societies, but find themselves soul-searching to clarify their beliefs about an array of moral issues including euthanasia and the death penalty . . . as well as their feelings toward one another.

Dr. Poppy Stamford, sister of the man who would introduce John Watson to Sherlock Holmes, teams up once again with Sherlock in a new adventure. One of Sherlock's Baker Street Irregulars, Wiggins, uncovers a dismembered body in a shallow grave. Poppy and Sherlock set out to solve the murder and suddenly discover that it may be linked to the mysterious mutilation of Her Majesty's swans. Working under the eerie cloak of one of the most devastating fogs in London's history, the case takes Poppy and Sherlock from the most sordid neighborhoods of dirty, old Victorian London to the lofty halls of the Privy Council.

In the fourth and final book in the Before Watson series, Sherlock Holmes and his companion and assistant, Dr. Poppy Stamford, embark on their greatest adventure yet. They are charged with solving not one case but three. One involves bogus charges against Poppy's former stable boy. The second is their attempt to stop a wave of crime perpetrated by the Elephant Gang, the famous and ruthless girls' gang that terrorized London in the nineteenth century. The third is an investigation into who burglarized the brothel owned by Maggie May, a mysterious woman with a keen mind and a treasure trove of secrets. During this time, Poppy also faces great losses and the promise of a new life - if she can bring herself to give up her quest to capture Sherlock's intransigent heart.