The pastiches and articles in this collection were written over the last five years or so, and cover a wide range of plots and subjects. Some, like The Man with the Shaven Scalp and The Tower Bridge Affair, are loosely based on real events. The Affair of the Aluminium Crutch is the only one which is to be found among the unpublished cases referred to by Dr. Watson, although some of the others have familiar Canonical themes such as locked rooms and mysterious messages. Banking and Finance in the Canon and the pastiche The Case of the Surplus Sovereigns both stem from the author’s working life in banking. The Sherlock Holmes Journal considered the former to be one of “the fundamental research tools for future scholarship in this detailed area.”

A few of the works have been published elsewhere, in “many nations and three separate continents,” as detailed in the Acknowledgments.

ERIC MONAHAN spent forty-three years in banking before retiring in 1990 and settling down to serious reading and writing on Canonical matters. He is a long-time member of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and is the Editor of The Torr, the journal of The Poor Folk Upon the Moors, known as “The Sherlock Holmes Society of the West Country.”

A native of London, he now lives in Devon in a house which overlooks Torbay, within easy reach of Dartmoor — home of Silver Blaze and the Hound. He shares this house with his wife, two dogs and two cats, and his other interests are woodwork and the history of aviation.