A Study in Treason

April 15, 2018
Dr. Watson, his son, and the daughter of Sherlock Holmes solve a case of treason in 1914.Joanna Blalock Watson, the daughter of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler and the wife of Dr. John Watson Jr., gets a chance to test her own formidable deductive skills when Sir Harold Whitlock calls at 221B Baker St. to ask the elder Dr. Watson for help in a case of espionage. After Watson insists that Joanna and John be included, Sir Harold tells them of the theft of a new treaty with France from the Duke of Winchester's carefully guarded country estate, where the Duke's son was making copies. The Germans would clearly love to see this document. Since all the doors and windows were locked in the five minutes that the Duke's son, Harry Halifax, was out of the room, Inspector Lestrade has thoroughly examined the place for secret passages. But Joanna finds an entrance to an unknown attic space, where footprints in the dust indicate that a large man who's a heavy smoker spent time waiting for his chance to steal the document. Settling in at a nearby inn, the sleuths find that one of the guests in a ground-floor room is never seen and has all meals delivered. Although suspicion falls on Roger Bennett, the son of the Duke's family butler, who's friendly with the German-born groundskeeper, Joanna goes further, suspecting even the families of the Duke and his daughter-in-law, both of whom are in financial difficulties. When the butler is found dead, apparently of carbon monoxide poisoning, Joanna thinks he's been murdered. Using many of the same skills as her father, including his mastery of all things related to tobacco, she bids the Baker Street Irregulars watch the room of the unknown guest while she continues to hunt down clues.Goldberg (The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes, 2017) matches the style of Conan Doyle's stories and adds the fillip of a female protagonist.

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April 16, 2018
The game is afoot in Goldberg’s lovingly crafted sequel to 2017’s The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes. On the eve of WWI, Sir Harold Whitlock, First Sea Lord, asks Joanna Blalock, daughter of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, for help in finding a sensitive document that has disappeared from a locked room on the foreign secretary’s estate. The police suspect the butler’s son and the German-born groundskeeper of colluding to sell the document to the Germans, but a careful examination of the clues leads Joanna to conclude otherwise. In Goldberg’s telling, Holmes died in 1903, and Joanna is married to John Watson Jr., M.D., the son of Holmes’s original sidekick, Dr. Watson, who’s still around to point out the similarities between Joanna and her late detective father. Avid Sherlockians will be delighted by the many echoes of the original Holmes canon, from the dog who did not bark to Joanna’s unlikely disguises and knack for martial arts. Agent: Scott Mendel, Mendel Media Group.