Mrs Hudson Investigates

A distraught young woman arrives at Baker Street urgently requesting the assistance of Mr Sherlock Holmes. But the great man and his assistant Dr Watson are away. What to do? She confides in Holmes’s landlady, Mrs Hudson, who over the years has developed certain powers of deduction from observing her tenant at work. The young woman, responding to this, begs her for help. Reluctantly, Mrs Hudson agrees… Thus begins a series of adventures, recounted engagingly by Mrs Hudson herself. Adventures and investigations which take her across the country, from the Midlands to Sydenham, from Eastbourne to Edinburgh. Her warmth and down-to-earth practicality are brought to bear on a range of strange and startling crimes that occasionally lead even Mrs Hudson herself into mortal danger.

Behind every detective stands a great woman . . . When Sherlock Holmes turns down the case of persecuted Laura Shirley, Mrs Hudson - the landlady of Baker Street - and Mary Watson - the wife of Dr Watson - resolve to take on the investigation themselves. From the kitchen of 221b, the two women begin their inquiries and enlist the assistance of the Baker Street Irregulars and the infamous Irene Adler. A trail of clues leads them to the darkest corners of Whitechapel, where the fearsome Ripper supposedly still stalks. They soon discover Laura Shirley is not the only woman at risk - the lives of many others are in danger too. As Mrs Hudson and Mary Watson put together the pieces of an increasingly complex puzzle, the investigation becomes bigger than either of them could ever have imagined. Can they solve the case or are they just pawns in a much larger game? It is time for Mrs Hudson and Mary Watson to emerge from the shadows and stand in the spotlight . . .

Mrs. Hudson is possibly the most famous landlady in literature. Presiding over the comings and goings at 221B Baker Street, she saw many clients, villains and Baker Street Irregulars during the tenancy of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. This series of columns, thoughts, recipes and memoirs are from a long-running column in the Sherlockian journal Canadian Holmes. In it the author, Wendy Heyman-Marsaw, puts herself in Mrs. Hudson’s shoes, up and down the 17 steps, and recounts not only the time and era but the food, dining and eating habits of Victorian England. This book explores the meals Mrs. Hudson would have prepared and served her two famous lodgers, what food they would have had while on rail journeys or eaten at hotels around London or inns around England. You will also learn about Mrs. Hudson herself, her husband and even her views towards women’s roles and rights in Victorian times. With many illustrations from the Strand Magazine, readers will get a rare peek inside Victorian life.

Sherlock Holmes is goaded into a boxing match, in which his opponent, Sailor Mackenzie, loses both the bout and his life. All but Mrs. Hudson and her colleagues, Holmes and Watson, are convinced the fighter's death was an accident. The Baker Street trio travels to McLellan Manor in Yorkshire to sort through the numerous people who have reason to celebrate Mackenzie's death and the opportunity to cause it. Complicating their investigation, Holmes and Watson are asked to become protectors for Lily Langtry, and Mrs. Hudson to become her lady's maid, when the famous beauty is threatened by her latest paramour, the volatile George Baird. Before all can be resolved, Holmes will need to lead a séance in which he will call on a ghost to solve a 35-year old murder, and Mrs. Hudson will find herself in surprising alliance with the Jersey Lily.

When a traveler recently returned from the Far East enlists the assistance of her employer, master sleuth Sherlock Holmes, after nearly being killed under mysterious circumstances, housekeeper Mrs. Hudson and Flottie, a young orphan in her care, undertake their own investigation into the case, which may involve an exotic Sumatran curse.

"You're needed, Mr. Holmes. I'm to bring you to Inspector Lestrade. Dr. Watson has been accused of murder." The words from Thomas Wiggins, now a junior printer, formerly the leader of the Baker Street Irregulars, rouses Holmes from the company of bees outside his cottage in Sussex Downs to return to London and save his friend and colleague from the gallows. To his surprise, he will have the recently retired Detective Inspector Lestrade as an important ally. Unsurprisingly, he will be joined by his former landlady and mentor, Mrs. Hudson, the sage of Baker Street. She will, however, first have to be released from custody as she has been jailed for her part in demonstrating on behalf of votes for women. Indeed, not only has Watson been wrongfully accused, so have two prominent suffragettes Mrs. Hudson encountered in the course of her own arrest, and it will be up to Mrs. Hudson to guide the exoneration of all the innocent parties. In the process she and Holmes will find it necessary to outmaneuver both Scotland Yard and London's own fledgling version of the Mafia.

A dazzling collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories, which sees the detective solving fiendish crimes, many involving methods beloved of Victorian murderers, poison by arsenic or cyanide, or even by venomous arachnids and reptiles. The colourful cast of characters includes villains bent on vengeance, traitorous revolutionaries, unfaithful and greedy wives wishing to rid themselves of their husbands, unfaithful and greedy husbands ditto, gullible widows, charming seducers, and captivating con artists out to fleece the innocent. Whether at a circus at Ramsgate, a magic show at London's Egyptian Hall, a deadly séance on Hampstead Hill, a pagan Celtic ritual in rural Wales or over genteel teas in elegant mansions, our intrepid detective, assisted as always by the long-suffering Dr Watson, stays hot on the heels of the criminals. Susan Knight, author of the critically acclaimed Mrs Hudson Investigates series of books, ably takes on the persona of Dr Watson in these nine adventures, while remaining ever faithful to the canon.