Books in the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series

Christmas is fast approaching – but for Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Dr John Watson, a sudden visitor is to change what little plans they have made for the yule-tide.James Harding, owner of a Guildford antique business, has travelled to 221B Baker Street armed with an intriguing proposition for the ever-dutiful detective.He has received an invitation from a Mr. Gerald MacMillan to assemble some friends and spend the festive period with him at his stately home in Sussex.A bizarre proposal considering Harding had only just met MacMillian.Holmes, who swiftly recognises MacMillan as a former confidence man, together with Watson shall form the rest of the travelling party.Whilst there, the famous duo try to uncover the intentions of the seemingly hospitable host who has chosen to spend Christmas with a stranger.True to form, the festivities are disturbed by an incident so shocking it threatens to ruin Christmas, but for Holmes it’s just the beginning ...Sherlock Holmes and the Yule-tide Mystery promises to be one Holmes’s most baffling cases yet. 

Doctor Watson always speculated about Sherlock Holmes’s early life and, in particular, the significance of his experiments at St Bart’s Hospital.Here for the first time all is revealed by Ian Charnock as he introduces the reader to a young Sherlock Holmes trying to make his way as the world’s first consulting detective, with methods unproven, but with a burning sense of mission.Discover how a Yucatan marsh toad is involved in a series of murders, and witness how Holmes saved Stamford’s father from the gallows. Together with Holmes, the reader will solve the puzzle of the solitary writer at the British Museum reading room; he will discern how an empty ship nearly brought about the end of the British Empire, and will discover the identity of Holmes’s greatest foe.The author, Ian Charnock is an art historian, an authority on the work of El Greco and an international classic car rally driver. 

As the twentieth century dawns, Holmes and Watson hear a knock on the door. Their enigmatic guest is Abdul Faziel, an Arab man from the mysterious land of Marrafaze – a land only rumoured to exist.Son of the Sheik, Faziel is fleeing his homeland to seek help. His father has been turned against him by the connivance of his brother, Mustapha, and the Grand Wazir. Mustapha wishes to usurp the throne and dispose of anyone who gets in his way.The plot thickens when Sherlock visits his brother Mycroft. Mycroft insists that Sherlock journey to Marrafaze in order to make diplomatic contact with the Sheikdom, over the fate of a certain mineral that has been discovered there – a mineral that could be manipulated for warfare, and disastrous if in the wrong hands.But there is no map to Marrafaze, and Holmes and Watson must embark upon an arduous trek across the Sahara desert, voyaging through uncharted territory.Battling alone through the blistering heat, with food and water in short supply, it seems they’ll never be able to navigate a way out of the barren wilderness.When they finally make it to Marrafaze, ‘the end of the world’, they encounter a land ruled by religious superstition and the whims of the Grand Wazir. Isolated in strange and incomprehensible territory, Holmes and Watson find themselves in unimaginable danger.