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Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of M
August 1894. Pall Mall Gazette journalist Judah Philemon Stanton, longtime friend of Dr. John Watson, is visiting 221 B Baker Street when an unexpected visitor arrives—Dr. Jack Seward (from Bram Stoker’s Dracula) who is searching for his missing friend, the Texan Quincey Morris. Within minutes of Holmes taking the case, word arrives from Scotland Yard of the brutal murder of the Chancellor of the Exchequer by what appears to be a wolf.
Narrated by Judah Stanton, Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of M is part thriller, part horror story, and part exposé on the complicated relationship between Holmes and Watson and the lengths the good doctor went to in protecting his friend, especially when he failed.
Modeled on the four Conan Doyle novellas—with an extended backstory taking place in Wyoming narrated by ex–Texas Ranger Quincey Morris—this prequel to Three Gothic Doctors and Their Sons honors the classic source material while bringing readers of the Sherlock Holmes stories and Dracula new insights, new characters, and new adventures.
About The Stanton Chronicles
The Stanton Chronicles combines extensive historical research with mystery and the paranormal to weave a fact-based fantasy of Global Empire and the multinational corporations and secret organizations that have ruled it from time immemorial.
Other Books in The Stanton Chronicles
Minor Confessions of an Angel Falling Upward
Three Gothic Doctors and Their Sons
The Cannon and the Quill, Book We All Be Jacobites Here
The Cannon and the Quill, Book Princes of the World
The Cannon and the Quill, Book How to be a Proper Pyrate
Narrated by Judah Stanton, Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of M is part thriller, part horror story, and part exposé on the complicated relationship between Holmes and Watson and the lengths the good doctor went to in protecting his friend, especially when he failed.
Modeled on the four Conan Doyle novellas—with an extended backstory taking place in Wyoming narrated by ex–Texas Ranger Quincey Morris—this prequel to Three Gothic Doctors and Their Sons honors the classic source material while bringing readers of the Sherlock Holmes stories and Dracula new insights, new characters, and new adventures.
About The Stanton Chronicles
The Stanton Chronicles combines extensive historical research with mystery and the paranormal to weave a fact-based fantasy of Global Empire and the multinational corporations and secret organizations that have ruled it from time immemorial.
Other Books in The Stanton Chronicles
Minor Confessions of an Angel Falling Upward
Three Gothic Doctors and Their Sons
The Cannon and the Quill, Book We All Be Jacobites Here
The Cannon and the Quill, Book Princes of the World
The Cannon and the Quill, Book How to be a Proper Pyrate
277 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 26, 2022
1 person is currently reading
About the author
Joey Madia
24 books28 followersJoey Madia is a writer, actor, director, Escape Room designer, educator, and historical education specialist. His Chautauqua portrayals include Captain Louis Emilio, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, “Black” Samuel Bellamy, Mariano Vallejo, and Allen Ginsberg. His one-man show and three novels on the Golden Age of Piracy, “The Cannon and the Quill,” have been entertaining and educating audiences for six years and were featured in North Carolina Travel and on the Japanese television program “Passage of Dreams,” sponsored by Tokyo Disney. Many of his seven novels and twenty-eight plays and musicals are based on true stories or extensive historical research. His four immersive escape rooms—in North Carolina, Scotland, and West Virginia—are based on historical events. Two of Joey’s commissioned screenplays have won awards and he is currently writing a fifth screenplay for a Hollywood producer.
Joey is cowriter, with two-time Grammy nominee David Young, of the rock opera Be the Change, and he’s just finished a commissioned musical about the cryptid Mothman and the Silver Bridge Disaster of 1967. His musical, Three Gothic Doctors and their Sons, is being produced for stage, live streaming, and a cinematic version in late 2022.
Joey is cowriter, with two-time Grammy nominee David Young, of the rock opera Be the Change, and he’s just finished a commissioned musical about the cryptid Mothman and the Silver Bridge Disaster of 1967. His musical, Three Gothic Doctors and their Sons, is being produced for stage, live streaming, and a cinematic version in late 2022.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 29, 2023
When Mr. Joey Madia sat down to create this gothic, intricately-woven, American-West infused take on Sherlock Holmes, he may have well been temporarily half-posessed by the ghost of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
I say half-possessed because Madia has managed to succeed in something most modern day Holmes recreations have failed to do - maintain the essence of voice and character of Conan Doyle's famed duo, while illuminating a fresh, original, and nuanced side of them.
The novel follows journalist Judah Stanton, who finds himself entangled in a missing person investigation thanks to his close friendship with Dr Watson. Ex Texas Ranger Quincey Morris has seemingly disappeared into the dark underworld of 1890s London in connection with a series of brutal murders imputed to a monstrous wolf.
In a tip of a hat to the horror-sub-genre seen in Holmes novels such as The Hound of The Baskervilles, the narrative leads the now-trio (much to the dismay of Holmes) to the discovery of a cruel and sinister underground fighting ring of enhanced beasts.
Madia's meticulous and exhaustive research is nothing short of mind-blowing, and serves the story-world of a narrative that continues to impress with every turn of the page.
What was personally fascinating was the vantage point of Stanton in allowing a closer look at Dr Watson, in the same manner that Conan Doyle used Watson to observe Holmes. We see new but justifiable sides to Watson while also developing an affinity for Stantom as a layered and worthy narrator himself.
From the opening chapter to the final page, there is nothing predictable in the unravelling of the story. In fact, the final act plays out in a way that could not have possibly been imagined at the start of the novel, making it a page-turning jounrey worthy of becoming a cult-classic.
Perhaps most impressive was Madia's ability to capture the tone and vinacular of the time. If I did not know the book was written as recently as two years ago, I would have believed I had stumbled upon a novel pulled straight from the dusty shelf of a Victorian library.
In a time when technology has made the writing of books far easier than it once was, the quality control of story structure, creative language, character development, and basic elements such as sentence-to-sentence construction have suffered the most. Madia, however, maintains a skill and precision in his craft that I fear only belongs to a dying breed.
All in all, this book is a gift to not only Holmes fans the world over, but writers looking to improve their craft.
My gratitude goes to Joey Madia for bringing this to the world.
If Sir Arthur Conan Doycle could read this book himself, I have no doubt it would have brought to his face a proud smile.
I say half-possessed because Madia has managed to succeed in something most modern day Holmes recreations have failed to do - maintain the essence of voice and character of Conan Doyle's famed duo, while illuminating a fresh, original, and nuanced side of them.
The novel follows journalist Judah Stanton, who finds himself entangled in a missing person investigation thanks to his close friendship with Dr Watson. Ex Texas Ranger Quincey Morris has seemingly disappeared into the dark underworld of 1890s London in connection with a series of brutal murders imputed to a monstrous wolf.
In a tip of a hat to the horror-sub-genre seen in Holmes novels such as The Hound of The Baskervilles, the narrative leads the now-trio (much to the dismay of Holmes) to the discovery of a cruel and sinister underground fighting ring of enhanced beasts.
Madia's meticulous and exhaustive research is nothing short of mind-blowing, and serves the story-world of a narrative that continues to impress with every turn of the page.
What was personally fascinating was the vantage point of Stanton in allowing a closer look at Dr Watson, in the same manner that Conan Doyle used Watson to observe Holmes. We see new but justifiable sides to Watson while also developing an affinity for Stantom as a layered and worthy narrator himself.
From the opening chapter to the final page, there is nothing predictable in the unravelling of the story. In fact, the final act plays out in a way that could not have possibly been imagined at the start of the novel, making it a page-turning jounrey worthy of becoming a cult-classic.
Perhaps most impressive was Madia's ability to capture the tone and vinacular of the time. If I did not know the book was written as recently as two years ago, I would have believed I had stumbled upon a novel pulled straight from the dusty shelf of a Victorian library.
In a time when technology has made the writing of books far easier than it once was, the quality control of story structure, creative language, character development, and basic elements such as sentence-to-sentence construction have suffered the most. Madia, however, maintains a skill and precision in his craft that I fear only belongs to a dying breed.
All in all, this book is a gift to not only Holmes fans the world over, but writers looking to improve their craft.
My gratitude goes to Joey Madia for bringing this to the world.
If Sir Arthur Conan Doycle could read this book himself, I have no doubt it would have brought to his face a proud smile.
Displaying 1 of 1 review