The Dark Water: the Strange Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes

"The third novel in an imaginative Victorian series narrated by the young Arthur Conan Doyle. As the inspirational model for Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant and eccentric Dr. Bell properly takes charge of the cryptic codes that figure in this ingenious mystery."-Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

"Pirie's knowledge of Doyle's biography, as well as of the Holmes canon, makes him an intellectual treat and a downright guilty pleasure."-The Washington Post

"I was utterly hooked. It's not just Thomas Harris; it's also Raymond Chandler and Arthur Conan Doyle himself. All of these great writers are echoed in a way that is not merely wonderful and absolutely gripping, but completely original. The series has huge commercial potential."-Sarah Dunant, #1 New York Times best-selling author of In the Company of the Courtesan

In a literary tour de force worthy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, author David Pirie brings his rich familiarity with both the Doyle biography and the Sherlock Holmes canon to a mystifying Victorian tale of vengeance and villainy. The howling man on the heath, a gothic asylum, the walking dead, the legendary witch of Dunwich-perils lurk in every turn of the page throughout this ingenious novel, as increasingly bizarre encounters challenge the deductive powers of young Doyle and his mentor, the pioneering criminal investigator Dr. Joseph Bell.

David Pirie is the author of two other critically praised novels featuring Arthur Conan Doyle, The Patient's Eyes and The Night Calls. He lives in Bath.