Crimes at Christmas

My latest cases for Sherlock Holmes have a festive twist, as the Great Detective finds himself investigating a pair of Christmas crimes. They will be published this winter alongside many more Christmas stories in the latest three volumes of the record breaking MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories.

I have many fond childhood memories of visiting family in Ealing on Boxing Day. In The St. Stephen’s Day Mystery (which appears in Part XXVIII), Holmes and Watson also spend the day after Chrismas in West London, investigating a mystery surrounding a stolen necklace.

Then in Part XXX, Holmes’s quiet Christmas alone in his cottage on the Sussex Downs is interrupted in the early hours of Christmas morning to investigate the death of an organist in The Midnight Mass Murder.

With these latest volumes, the collection now includes over 600 new traditional Canonical Holmes adventures, from 200 contributors from around the world. The collections raise money for the Stepping Stones School for special needs children, recently renamed Undershaw in honour of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

You can pre-order the latest volumes of the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories until 30 September 2021, through the Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mxpublishing/the-mx-book-of-new-sherlock-holmes-stories-vol-xxviii-to-xxx/. The campaign, which reached its initial funding goal within fifteen minutes, also offers the chance to catch up with previous volumes, or even to buy a full set of all thirty books (although sadly a bookshelf to accommodate them is not included).