The Adventure of the Deceased Scholar: The Early Case Files of Sherlock Holmes; Case Three

Sherwood-Fabre’s enticing third mystery featuring a teenage Sherlock Holmes (after 2020’s The Adventure of the Murdered Gypsy) finds Holmes attending the Oxford-Cambridge boat race on the Thames with his astute mother and his brother, Mycroft, a student at Oxford. There, Mycroft’s accosted by Lady Surminster, the mother of his classmate Vernon, who recently disappeared. The three Holmeses agree to help look for Vernon, until a drowning victim turns up wearing the missing man’s suit. After the sad news is broken to Vernon’s family, their butler, Hamilton, goes to the hospital to make a formal identification. Hamilton declares the dead man a stranger, but then he recognizes a second drowned body on a nearby autopsy table as Vernon’s. The coroner declares Vernon killed himself. Fearing that an official verdict of suicide would forfeit their assets to the Crown, Vernon’s relatives threaten to release a letter that they believe would implicate Mycroft in a scandal unless the Holmeses investigate. With a tight deadline to prove Vernon was murdered, the Holmeses pursue several leads, including Vernon’s mysterious interest in 16th-century land records pertaining to a property apparently unconnected to his family. This is the author’s best plot yet. Fans of the Enola Holmes graphic novel series will be intrigued. (Self-published)