September, 1925. After their recent adventures in Transylvania, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes look forward to spending time with Holmes' son, the famous artist Damian Adler, and his family. But when they arrive at Damian's house in the French countryside, they discover that the Adlers have fled from a mysterious threat. In the ominously empty house, Russell discovers four crates packed with memorabilia related to the artist Horace Vernet, including an old journal written in a nearly impenetrable code. Intrigued, Russell sets about deciphering the intricate cryptograph. The secrets of the past appear to be reaching into the present. Could there be things about Holmes' own history that even the master detective does not perceive?

From 70 of the most successful mystery writers in the business, an invaluable guide to crafting mysteries—from character development and plot to procedurals and thrillers—“this is a writing guide that readers and writers will turn to again and again� (Booklist, starred review). Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is known for providing unparalleled resources on the craft, art, and business of storytelling, helping writers of all levels improve their skills for nearly a century. Now, this handbook helps authors navigate the ever-shifting publishing landscape—from pacing, plotting, the business side of publishing, to the current demand for diversity and inclusivity across all genres, and more. Featuring essays by a new generation of bestselling experts on various elements of the craft and shorter pieces of crowd-sourced wisdom from the MWA membership as a whole, the topics covered can be categorized as follows: —Before Writing (rules; genres; setting; character; research; etc.) —While Writing (outlining; the plot; dialogue; mood; etc.) —After Writing (agents; editors; self-pub; etc.) —Other than Novels (short stories; true crime; etc.) —Other Considerations (diverse characters; legal questions; criticism) Also included is a collection of essays from MWA published authors—including Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, and Charlaine Harris—selected by bestselling authors Lee Child and Laurie King and arranged thematically answering, “What piece of writing advice do you wish you’d had at the beginning of your career?� “Everything you wanted to know about how to plan, draft, write, revise, publish, and market a mystery� (Kirkus Reviews), this inclusive manual provides practical, current, easily digestible advice for new and established authors alike.

Queen Marie of Roumania, granddaughter to both Victoria, Empress of the British Empire, and Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, is in need of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes' services. The Queen, a famous beauty who has transformed Roumania from a quiet backwater into a significant force, invites the pair to Bran castle, the ancient fortress that sits on the border with the newly regained territory of Transylvania. The threat the Queen fears is dubious: shadowy figures, vague whispers, dangers that may only be accidents. But a young girl is involved. So, putting aside their doubts, Russell and Holmes set out to investigate the mystery in a land of long memory and hidden corners, from whose churchyards the shades creep.

The latest adventure for the intrepid Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes takes readers into the frenetic world of silent films, where the pirates are real and the shooting isn't all done with cameras. In England's young silent-film industry, the megalomaniacal Randolph Fflytte is king. Nevertheless, Mary Russell is dispatched to investigate the criminal activities that surround Fflytte's popular movie studio. So Russell is traveling undercover to Portugal, along with the film crew that is gearing up to shoot a cinematic extravaganza, Pirate King. But as movie make-believe becomes true terror, Russell and Holmes themselves may experience a final fadeout.

September, 1925. After their recent adventures in Transylvania, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes look forward to spending time with Holmes' son, the famous artist Damian Adler, and his family. But when they arrive at Damian's house in the French countryside, they discover that the Adlers have fled from a mysterious threat. In the ominously empty house, Russell discovers four crates packed with memorabilia related to the artist Horace Vernet, including an old journal written in a nearly impenetrable code. Intrigued, Russell sets about deciphering the intricate cryptograph. The secrets of the past appear to be reaching into the present. Could there be things about Holmes' own history that even the master detective does not perceive?

1925. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes arrive home to find a stone. The stone is inscribed with the same name that they last saw in the Tokyo garden of the future emperor of Japan. It is the first indication that the investigation they did for him a year ago might not be as complete as they had thought. In Japan there were spies; in Oxford there are dreams. In both places, there is a small, dark-haired woman, and danger . . .

In 1924, San Francisco is booming. The great fire and earthquake of 1906 cleared the ground for a modern city, but the closer she comes to the place she used to call home, the more troubling Mary Russell's dreams become... As Russell and her husband, the eminent Sherlock Holmes, attempt to settle their affairs in the City by the Bay, Mary's past isn't the only thing that catches up with them - a mysterious stranger is waiting for the pair, and may be the only one who holds the key to the locked rooms that have been haunting Mary's dreams... In Locked Rooms, internationally bestselling author Laurie R King portrays the 1920s in exuberant detail and, with near-lyrical prose, presents a compelling murder mystery that will keep your imagination and attention locked in its pages until the very end.

Only hours after Holmes and Russell return from solving one riddle on the moor, another knocks on their front door.literally. It's a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since. But it's not until Holmes and Russell arrive at Justice Hall, a home of unearthly perfection set in a garden modeled on Paradise, that they fully understand the irony echoed in the family motto, Justicia fortitudo mea est: "Righteousness is my strength."

In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees when a young woman literally stumbles into him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes--and match him wit for wit. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern twentieth-century woman proves a deft protegee and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. But even in their first case together, the pair face a truly cunning adversary who will stop at nothing to put an end to their partnership.

In the eerie wasteland of Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes summons his devoted wife and partner, Mary Russell, from her studies at Oxford to aid the investigation of a death and some disturbing phenomena of a decidedly supernatural origin. Through the mists of the moor there have been sightings of a spectral coach made of bones carrying a woman long-ago accused of murdering her husband--and of a hound with a single glowing eye. Returning to the scene of one of his most celebrated cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes and Russell investigate a mystery darker and more unforgiving than the moors themselves.

"
"It's only the second day of 1924, but Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, find themselves embroiled in intrigue. It starts with a New Year's visit from Holmes's brother Mycroft, who comes bearing a strange package containing the papers of an English spy named Kimball O'Hara--the same Kimball known to the world through Kipling's famed Kim. Inexplicably, O'Hara withdrew from the "Great Game" of espionage and now he has just as inexplicably disappeared.
When Russell discovers Holmes's own secret friendship with the spy, she knows the die is cast: she will accompany her husband to India to search for the missing operative. But Russell soon learns that in this faraway and exotic land, it's often impossible to tell friend from foe--and that some games aren't played for fun but for the highest stakes of all...life and death.

An acclaimed master of suspense creates a heroine you will never forget in this superbly chilling novel of a woman who begins a desperate undertaking that may transform her life--or end it.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR WORST FEARS AREN’T ALL IN YOUR MIND?

Rae Newborn is a woman on the edge: on the edge of sanity, on the edge of tragedy, and now on the edge of the world. She has moved to an island at the far reaches of the continent to restore the house of an equally haunted figure, her mysterious great-uncle; but as her life begins to rebuild itself along with the house, his story starts to wrap around hers. Powerful forces are stirring, but Rae cannot see where her reality leaves off and his fate begins.

Fifty-two years old, Rae must battle the feelings that have long tormented her--panic, melancholy, and a skin-crawling sense of watchers behind the trees. Before she came here, she believed that most of the things she feared existed only in her mind. And who can say, as disturbing incidents multiply, if any of the watchers on Folly Island might be real? Is Rae paranoid, as her family and the police believe, or is the threat real? Is the island alive with promise--or with dangers?

With Folly, award-winning author LAURIE R. KING once again powerfully redefines psychological suspense on a sophisticated and harrowing new level, and proves why legions of readers and reviewers have named her a master of the genre.

In a strange room in Morocco, Mary Russell is trying to solve a pressing mystery: Who am I? She has awakened with shadows in her mind, blood on her hands, and soldiers pounding at the door. She is clothed like a man, and armed only with her wits and a scrap of paper showing a mysterious symbol. Overhead, warplanes pass ominously north. Meanwhile, Holmes is pulled into the growing war between France, Spain, and the Rif Revolt. He badly wants the wisdom and courage of his wife, whom he discovers, to his horror, has gone missing. As Holmes searches for her, and Russell searches for herself, each tries to crack deadly parallel puzzles before it's too late for them, for Africa, and for the peace of Europe.

THE TWENTIETH-ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE FIRST NOVEL OF THE ACCLAIMED MARY RUSSELL SERIES BY EDGAR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR LAURIE R. KING.
In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles onto him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern, twentieth-century woman proves a deft protegee and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. They are soon called to Wales to help Scotland Yard find the kidnapped daughter of an American senator, a case of international significance with clues that dip deep into Holmes's past. Full of brilliant deduction, disguises, and danger, "The Beekeeper's Apprentice," the first book of the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mysteries, is "remarkably beguiling" ("The Boston Globe").

A Monstrous Regiment of Women continues Mary Russell's adventures as a worthy student of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and as an ever more skilled sleuth in her own right. Looking for respite in London after a stupefying visit from relatives, Mary encounters a friend from Oxford. The young woman introduces Mary to her current enthusiasm, a strange and enigmatic woman named Margery Childe, who leads something called "The New Temple of God." It seems to be a charismatic sect involved in the post-World War I suffrage movement, with a feminist slant on Christianity. Mary is curious about the woman, and intrigued. Is the New Temple a front for something more sinister? When a series of murders claims members of the movement's wealthy young female volunteers and principal contributors, Mary, with Holmes in the background, begins to investigate. Things become more desperate than either of them expected as Mary's search plunges her into the worst danger she has yet faced.

Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are back in Laurie R. King's highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling mystery series. And this time the first couple of detection pair up to unlock the buried memory of a shocking crime with the power to kill again-lost somewhere in Russell's own past.
After departing Bombay by ship, Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are en route to the bustling modern city of San Francisco. There, Mary will settle some legal affairs surrounding the inheritance of her family's old estate. But the closer they get to port, the more Mary finds herself prey to troubling dreams and irrational behavior-a point not lost on Holmes, much to Russell's annoyance.
In 1906, when Mary was six, San Francisco was devastated by an earthquake and a raging fire that reduced the city to rubble. For years, Mary has denied any memory of the catastrophe that for days turned the fabled streets into hell on earth. But Holmes suspects that some hidden trauma connected with the "unforgettable" catastrophe may be the real culprit responsible for Mary's memory lapse. And no sooner do they begin to familiarize themselves with the particulars of the Russell estate than it becomes apparent that whatever unpleasantness Mary has forgotten, it hasn't forgotten her. Why does her father's will forbid access to the house except in the presence of immediate family? Why did someone break in, then take nothing of any value? And why is Russell herself targeted for assassination?
The more questions they ask of Mary's past, the more people from that past turn out to have died violent, unexplained deaths. Now, with the aid of a hard-boiled young detective and crime writer named Hammett, Russell and Holmes find themselves embroiled in a mystery that leads them through the winding streets of Chinatown to the unspoken secrets of a parent's marriage and the tragic car "accident" that a fourteen-year-old Mary alone survived-an accident that may not have been an accident at all. What Russell is about to discover is that even a forgotten past never dies...and it can kill again.

"From the Hardcover edition."

BESTSELLING AUTHORS GO HOLMES--IN AN IRRESISTIBLE NEW COLLECTION edited by award-winning Sherlockians Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger
Neil Gaiman. Laura Lippman. Lee Child. These are just three of eighteen superstar authors who provide fascinating, thrilling, and utterly original perspectives on Sherlock Holmes in this one-of-a-kind book. These modern masters place the sleuth in suspenseful new situations, create characters who solve Holmesian mysteries, contemplate Holmes in his later years, fill gaps in the Sherlock Holmes Canon, and reveal their own personal obsessions with the Great Detective.
Thomas Perry, for example, has Dr. Watson tell his tale, in a virtuoso work of alternate history that finds President McKinley approaching the sleuth with a disturbing request; Lee Child sends an FBI agent to investigate a crime near today's Baker Street--only to get a twenty-first-century shock; Jacqueline Winspear spins a story of a plucky boy inspired by the detective to make his own deductions; and graphic artist Colin Cotterill portrays his struggle to complete this assignment in his hilarious "The Mysterious Case of the Unwritten Short Story."*
In perfect tribute comes this delicious collection of twisty, clever, and enthralling studies of a timeless icon.
Featuring stories from
Alan Bradley
Tony Broadbent
Jan Burke
Lionel Chetwynd
Lee Child
Colin Cotterill*
Neil Gaiman
Laura Lippman
Gayle Lynds & John Sheldon
Phillip & Jerry Margolin
Margaret Maron
Thomas Perry
S. J. Rozan
Dana Stabenow
Charles Todd
Jacqueline Winspear
*print-version only

Only hours after Holmes and Russell return from solving one riddle on the moor, another knocks on their front door...literally.
It's a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since. But it's not until Holmes and Russell arrive at Justice Hall, a home of unearthly perfection set in a garden modeled on Paradise, that they fully understand the irony echoed in the family motto, "Justicia fortitudo mea est: ""Righteousness is my strength."
A trail of ominous clues leads Holmes and Russell from an English hamlet to fashionable Paris to the wild prairie of the New World. But as the moment of reckoning approaches, will justice be done...or have they been lured straight into an elusive killer's perfectly baited trap?