Adventures of the Singing Flagstones and Violet Pressure: New Sherlock Holmes

Adventure of the Singing Flagstones: A Sherlock Holmes MysteryFrom the Unpublished Casebooks of Dr. John H. WatsonA terrified actuary. A floor that sings in the dark. A king's ransom tucked inside a hollowed turnip.When Mr. Bartholomew Finch, a respectable City accountant, bursts into 221B Baker Street with shredded trouser cuffs, grease-stained linens, and a tale of nocturnal madness, Sherlock Holmes immediately senses an adversary worthy of his intellect. For nineteen consecutive nights, the stone floor of Finch's Clerkenwell cellar flat has resonated with an eerie, wet choir-and each morning, provisions vanish through bolted iron plates, replaced by gnawed tallow candles and a priceless, uncut sapphire.What begins as a seemingly supernatural phenomenon soon unravels into one of Victorian London's most audacious and bizarre criminal conspiracies.Guided by obsolete eighteenth-century river maps, Holmes and Dr. Watson descend into the subterranean abyss of the lost Fleet Ditch. Beneath the impenetrable vaults of Lombard Street's greatest banking houses, a disgraced rat-catcher has weaponized the tidal currents of the Thames, orchestrating an invisible army of trained river rodents with the mechanical precision of a brass whistle. Adventure of the Violet Pressure: A Sherlock Holmes MysteryFrom the Unpublished Casebooks of Dr. John H. WatsonSixty atmospheres of steam. A cracked diver's gauge choked with Mediterranean lavender. A lost armada buried beneath two centuries of Thames mud.When Tobias Hallowell, chief hydraulic engineer of the Wapping Pumping Station, arrives at 221B Baker Street bearing a brine-soaked wicker basket and a story of mechanical madness, Sherlock Holmes immediately recognizes the subterranean pulse of an extraordinary crime. For three consecutive nights, London's massive 700-pound hydraulic power mains have spun backward against sixty atmospheres of pressure-and the intake sump has coughed up a shattered depth gauge, a fresh sprig of sea-lavender, and an antique 1702 Spanish doubloon scarred by violent pneumatic suction.What begins as an industrial puzzle soon pulls Holmes and Dr. Watson into the dark, freezing waters of the Pool of London.Beneath the hulls of Wapping and Execution Dock, a ruthless river-pirate and disgraced naval mechanician, Captain Silas Drake, has subverted the city's modern hydraulic power network. By siphoning the immense steam-driven suction of the municipal mains, Drake has automated the plunder of the legendary sunken wrecks of the Great Storm of 1703-leaving rival divers crushed inside their own diving bells. The direct sequel to "The Adventure of the Singing Flagstones"-essential reading for lovers of classic Victorian crime, traditional Sherlock Holmes pastiches, and historical gaslight mysteries.