What does it mean to be a detective with no cases to solve? Sherlock Holmes tries not to ponder this question as he distracts himself from his professional failings with bare-knuckle boxing at an underground fight club and vials of cocaine and morphine. John Watson spends his days in an operating theatre on an Army base in Afghanistan, doing his best to patch up the wounded and failing more often than he'd like. The dark, violent worlds in which both men choose to live complicate their romantic lives and cause them terrible suffering but set them on paths that are destined to cross. BEFORE HOLMES MET WATSON is the prequel to the novel, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE PAPER JOURNAL, an action-packed adventure and love story set in an eerily dystopian near future where government-mandated social networking has virtually eliminated privacy and made the great detective nearly obsolete.

"LOVE IS ABOUT LOYALTY AND SACRIFICE AND WILL." It is nearing the turn of the 22nd century, and Sherlock Holmes isn't having much luck trying to be a detective. Social networking has morphed into a single, centralized, government-linked platform called The Archive. Every citizen has a Personal Archive File, which records all the significant (and most of the insignificant) moments of their lives and is open to everyone else. Birth records, school records, medical and financial records (virtually everything anyone could want to know about a person) are readily accessible to anyone who takes the time to look someone up. In a world that is ostensibly without secrets, what use are the keen deductive skills of Sherlock Holmes when they rarely reveal anything about a person a quick Archive search wouldn't? Add to that the recent development of a new crime-solving computer program, and human detectives are on the cusp of extinction. Unable to make a living at his chosen profession, Sherlock often falls into despair and abuses cocaine and morphine to quiet his mind. Sherlock takes on a case involving a prolific blackmailer, and the lengths to which he goes to resolve the matter reveal a dark, incredibly manipulative side of him that leaves John Watson doubting whether he ever knew his dear friend at all. Sherlock’s actions set in motion a catastrophic sequence of events that threaten to destroy his relationship with John, which both men are coming to realize is deeply felt romantic love. Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Paper Journal is a clever re-imagining of some of the classic Sherlock Holmes stories that expertly balances an action-packed adventure set in an eerily familiar dystopian future with a delicate love story.