Watson and Holmes move to a now-famous address, 221B Baker Street, where Watson is introduced to Holmes's eccentricities as well as his uncanny ability to deduce information about his fellow beings. Somewhat shaken by Holmes's egotism, Watson is nonetheless dazzled by his seemingly magical ability to provide detailed information about a man glimpsed once under the streetlamp across the road.

Then murder. Facing a deserted house, a twisted corpse with no wounds, a mysterious phrase drawn in blood on the wall, and the buffoons of Scotland Yard--Lestrade and Gregson--Holmes measures, observes, picks up a pinch of this and a pinch of that, and generally baffles his faithful Watson. Later, Holmes explains: "In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward.... There are few people who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result." Holmes is in that elite group.

Conan Doyle quickly learned that it was Holmes's deductions that were of most interest to his readers. The lengthy flashback, while a convention of popular fiction, simply distracted from readers' real focus. It is when Holmes and Watson gather before the coal fire and Holmes sums up the deductions that led him to the successful apprehension of the criminal that we are most captivated. Subsequent Holmes stories--The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes--rightly plunge the twosome directly into the middle of a baffling crime, piling mystery upon mystery until Holmes's denouement once more leaves the dazzled Watson murmuring, "You are wonderful, Holmes!" Generations of readers agree. --Barbara Schlieper

The ritual murder of a prostitute named Ada McKinley in a bedroom on decrepit Pentecost Alley would ordinarily occasion no stir in Victoria's great metropolis. But, under the victim's body, the police find a Hellfire Club badge inscribed with the name Finlay Fitzjames--a name that instantly draws Superintendent Thomas Pitt into the case.

Finlay's father *immensely wealthy, powerful, and dangerous *refuses to consider the possibility that his son has been in Ada McKinley's bed. The implication is clear: Pitt is to arrest someone other than Finlay Fitzjames for Ada's demise. But Thomas Pitt is not a man to be intimidated, and with the help of his quick-witted wife, Charlotte, he stubbornly pursues his investigation *one that twists and turns like London's own ancient streets. . . .

"Stands as one of her most intricately constructed plots . . . Perry packs a triple wallop into the final pages, one climax following another."

 *Chicago Sun-Times

"Vibrant . . . Alluring."

 *The New York Times Book Review

A MAIN SELECTION OF THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB

Now, in sunless Water Lane, respected solicitor Leighton Duff lies dead, kicked and beaten to death. Beside him lies the barely living body of his son, Rhys. The police cannot fathom these brutal assaults until shrewd investigator William Monk uncovers a connection between them and a series of rapes and beatings of local prostitutes. Then, shockingly, it begins to appear that young Rhys may have killed his own father. . . .

In his family life, Angus Stonefield had been gentle and loving; in business, a man of probity; and in his relationship with his twin brother, Caleb, a virtual saint. Now Angus is missing, and it appears more than possible that Caleb--a creature long since abandoned to depravity--has murdered him. Hired to find the missing man, William Monk puts himself into his shoes, searching for clues to Angus's fate and his vicious brother's whereabouts. Slowly, Monk inches toward the truth--and also, unwittingly, toward the destruction of his good name and livelihood. . . .

"MASTERFUL . . . DARKLY CHILLING . . . Perry eloquently delivers to her readers the flavor of Victorian England. . . . Readers will be kept entertained and guessing--right up to the final pages."

--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU HAVE IT FIGURED OUT, THINK AGAIN! No one can capture and bring to life the drama, excitement, and feel of Victorian England like Perry."

--Mostly Murder

A Main Selection of the Mystery Guild

When Unity, three months pregnant, tumbles down the staircase to her death, superintendent Thomas Pitt is virtually certain that one of the three deeply devout men in the house committed murder. Could it have been the Reverend Parmenter, his handsome curate, or his Roman Catholic son? Pitt and his clever wife, Charlotte, refuse to settle for less than the truth--and justice. . . .

Charles Voisey, leader of a powerful secret society known as the Inner Circle, was defeated by Pitt when he tried (in The Whitechapel Conspiracy) to abolish the British monarchy. Only months later, though, he's back on top, running for a seat in Parliament. Under the auspices of the newly created Special Branch, Pitt is charged with learning whether Voisey has any "unguarded vulnerabilities." The odds against Pitt succeeding are high; Voisey may be "shallow, self-important [and] condescending," but he impresses voters as more charismatic and less controversial than his opponent, Aubrey Serracold, who's also hobbled by his connection to the recent slaying of a popular spiritualist. While Pitt's wife, Charlotte, and their family are safely out of London on vacation, Pitt, aided by the gruff but dogged Inspector Samuel Tellman, his politically astute sister-in law, and Charlotte's resourceful great-aunt Vespasia, seeks to solve the medium's murder before it can derail Aubrey Serracold's campaign.

Perry expertly portrays the volatile British political climate of the 1890s, and by making Pitt and Tellman rivals in their investigation, she further illuminates both men's characters. However, Southampton Row reduces the usually intrepid Charlotte to a hand-wringing irrelevance, and the novel feels too much like an intermediate and inconclusive chapter in a longer story arc. Like Holmes and Moriarty, Thomas Pitt and Charles Voisey appear destined to grapple once more. --J. Kingston Pierce

Hester Monk emerges as a fascinating character in her own right. Her relationship with the enigmatic William, whose fragmented recollections (of who and what he was before the accident that erased most of his memory) still haunt him, is thoughtfully evoked. As usual, Perry handles the secondary characters with brio. Breeland, in particular, becomes in the author's capable hands a man whose obsessive devotion to the Union cause underscores his inability to return Merrit's love. As Hester tells the infatuated young woman, "To see the mass and lose the individual is not nobility. You are confusing emotional cowardice with honour.... To follow your duty when the cost in friendship is high, or even the cost in love, is a greater vision, of course. But to retreat from personal involvement, from gentleness and the giving of yourself, and choose instead the heroics of a general cause, no matter how fine, is cowardice." This sixth entry in the Monk series evokes the era in which it is set with a fine eye for details of dress, manners, décor, and culture, while skillfully unfolding the emotional and intellectual depths of both William and Hester, whose well-honed intelligence makes it clear that she, too, deserves a series of her own. --Jane Adams

The End of Innocence by Anne Perry

The Empire Strikes Back by Brad Meltzer

Each performed by Scott Brick.

* A companion to Crime Through TIme, the remarkable first collection of historical mysteries * All new, never-before-published stories by bestselling award-winning writers. * Named a Top Ten Paperback by The Poisoned Pen