Sherlock Holmes and a Tale of Greed

by Daniel D. Victor

Sherlock Holmes examines the body of a murdered scrubwoman that lies on the floor of the South Kensington Museum of Art. But it is not a real corpse he looks at, for those remains have been removed by the coroner. The body Holmes studies appears in a drawing of the murder scene precisely rendered by an American art student. The drawing leads Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the artist-a young Frank Norris before he turns his talents to writing- across the English countryside in search of the killer. From the shops in the Strand to the pier at Brighton, from the lions of Trafalgar Square to the coalfields of Lancashire, the trio, along with Inspectors Lestrade and Gregson, find themselves entangled in a tale of gold, greed, and murder.

127 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 9, 2023

About the author

Daniel D. Victor is a retired high school teacher who lives with his wife and two sons in his native Los Angeles, California. A graduate of Fairfax High School, he earned his BA at UC Berkeley, his MA at California State University, Los Angeles, and his Ph.D. in American Literature at the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, CA. His doctoral dissertation, THE MUCKRAKER AND THE DANDY: THE CONFLICTING PERSONAE OF DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS, led to the creation of the Sherlock Holmes pastiche THE SEVENTH BULLET. Originally published as a Thomas Dunne Book by St. Martin's Press in 1992, it was reprinted in paperback by Titan Books, UK, in 2010 as part of its series, "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," and translated into Russian in 2012. The novel's first two chapters also appeared in Cold Mountain Review, Appalachian State University. In addition to his writing, Victor has won numerous teaching awards including an independent study grant offered by the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as admission to two NEH summer seminars, one at UC Berkeley, the other at Oxford University in Oxford, England. Victor's second novel, A STUDY IN SYNCHRONICITY, is a murder mystery with a two-stranded plot, one of which features a Sherlock Holmes-like private detective. Victor's second Holmes novel, THE FINAL PAGE OF BAKER STREET, in which Holmes finds the young Raymond Chandler working for him as a pageboy, was published in 2014. It is the first volume of his series, "Sherlock Holmes and the American Literati," produced by MX Publishing. The second, THE BARON OF BREDE PLACE (2015), introduces Holmes to novelist Stephen Crane; the third, SEVENTEEN MINUTES TO BAKER STREET (2016), presents Mark Twain; and the fourth, THE OUTRAGE AT THE DIOGENES CLUB (2016), involves Jack London. Victor has also contributed short stories about Holme to the anthologies, THE MX BOOK OF NEW SHERLOCK HOLMES STORIES, BEYOND WATSON, and HOLMES AWAY FROM HOME.

Reviews

[Sara Fioretti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oltre al racconto che da il titolo al volume, è presente un altro racconto: Personal Column. Rapacità di per sé non è una brutta avventura; niente di eccezionale, ma comunque godibile. Ma l'altro racconto...terribile! Oltre al fatto di essere un giallo molto mediocre, il problema principale qui è che i due protagonisti non sono Sherlock Holmes e Watson. Hanno i loro nomi, è presente l'ispettore Lestrade, vivono in Baker Street, ma non sono in alcun modo Sherlock e Watson ma neanche lontanamente.