When misadventure led a schoolboy in London to employment at Baker Street, few could have guessed where his introduction to Sherlock Holmes would lead. But as the lad matures and he finds himself caught in the middle of a murder investigation, his friendship with Holmes and Watson lures him into the role of detective. “Billy” documents his experiences, and soon his sleuthing skills not only bring him to another murder, but also lay the foundation for his metamorphosis into a famous mystery writer, the novelist the world now knows as Raymond Chandler.

They called her "Lady Stewart" when she was married to a British aristocrat. They called her "Miss Cora "when she ran a brothel in Florida. But she called herself "Mrs. Crane" when she asked Sherlock Holmes to locate her common-law husband, writer Stephen Crane, who'd gone missing in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. In their attempt to fulfil the lady's request, Holmes and Watson encounter a world of celebrity authors, terrorist bombings, and haunted manor houses. But it is only when Stephen Crane falls victim to a notorious blackmailer that the master detective and his partner find themselves face-to-face with cold-blooded murder. Under darkened skies, a solitary apparition stood brightly illuminated on the ship's gloomy deck. Or so it seemed. Cloaked in a long white raincoat-the same gleaming duster he'd worn in the face of Spanish gunfire at San Juan Heights - Stephen Crane looked for all the world like the ghost so many people thought he'd already become.

Sherlock Holmes had never met a writer who had ridiculed him as bitterly as Samuel L. Clemens had. For that matter, Holmes had never met a writer who fancied himself a detective. Yet Sam Clemens not only unraveled Holmes investigation into the murder of the hot-blooded woman on Thor Bridge, but also, while writing as Mark Twain, belittled Holmes highly-touted detecting skills. In this recently discovered narrative, Doctor Watson sets the record straight. He reveals other crimes related to the original murder while relating what prompted Clemens in a 1902 short story to deride the famous detective. Spurred on by such criticism, as well as by clues discovered in a classic tale by Bret Harte, Sherlock Holmes begins a new investigation, one that leads Holmes and Watson from the gardens of Windsor Castle to the spires of Oxford University in their efforts to track down a deranged assassin bent on wreaking even more havoc.

In 1910, American author and social critic Jack London began writing The Assassination Bureau, Ltd., a work that he never completed. Now, thanks to the recently discovered manuscript of Dr. John Watson, we know why. The early part of London's book describes a secret organization-scoffed at or ignored by police officials-that conspires to murder influential political and social leaders. Not until Sherlock Holmes is provoked into action by threats close to home does anyone appear able to stop the Assassination Bureau. As Holmes and Watson proceed, they uncover devilish plots involving the deaths of some of the most prominent figures in history-from American Presidents to European heads of state, from murderous gangsters to muckraking writers like Jack London himself. With a deadly timing-device ticking, Sherlock Holmes hopes to prevent any further murders from threatening world peace. But by 1912, is he already too late?