Death on a Pale Horse - Softcover

Thomas, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1605986216 ISBN 13: 9781605986210

Publisher: Pegasus Crime, 2014

Synopsis

Holmes and Watson travel abroad upon the behest of Queen Victoria to solve an international conspiracy, from critics' favorite and master Sherlockian Donald Thomas.

In a momentous period of British history, Donald Thomas’s latest Sherlock Holmes adventure pits the Great Detective and his faithful biographer, Dr. John Watson, against an international conspiracy led by a disgraced English officer. Colonel Hunter Moran bears upon him “The Mark of the Beast”; his satanic ingenuity leaves a spectacular trail of devastation. It runs from the annihilation of a British armored column by Zulu tribesmen armed only with shields and spears, to a life-and-death struggle on the sinking passenger steamer Comtesse de Flandre.

The heir to the French empire lies dead in the African dust. Europe is brought to the brink of war by forged dispatches, designed to enrich gun-runners and assassins. The gold-fields and diamond mines of South Africa become the playground of organized crime.

Only the detective genius of Holmes can prove a match for the unfolding criminality of Moran and his associates. With Watson and Mycroft at his side, Sherlock Holmes again demonstrates although the powers of the state and the underworld may try to overpower him, they will never out-think his splendid analytical mind at the height of its powers.

About this title

About the Author

Donald Thomas has published forty books, including poetry, fiction, biography, and true crime.  A stage-play based on his work The Return of Sherlock Holmes, was recently produced in Wales.  His biography of Robert Browning was short-listed for the Whitbread Award and he received The Gregory Award from T. S. Eliot personally for his poetry collection Points of Contact.  The Execution of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil and Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly are all available from Pegasus Books. He lives in Bath.

From Booklist

Thomas’ latest Sherlock Holmes novel finds the great detective hot on the trail of a criminal mastermind almost as dangerous as Professor Moriarty, Colonel Rawdon Moran, formerly of the British Army, whose plot to acquire gold and diamond mines in southern Africa involves manufacturing a war designed to bring Britain to its knees. A fellow whose maniacal scheme rivals that of your typical James Bond villain (the book’s subtitle, Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty’s Secret Service, makes an obvious Bond reference), Moran is a worthy adversary for Holmes, a fiendishly clever foe with a seemingly limitless capacity for evil. But Holmes, of course, has his own weapon, his powerful intellect (and, in this case, that of his brilliant brother, Mycroft, too), and he demonstrates once again why he always comes out on top. Thomas, who’s written a handful of Holmes stories, does an excellent job of re-creating the feel of Conan Doyle’s originals—Dr. Watson’s first-person narration is particularly spot-on—while looking at Holmes from fresh angles. A fine addition to the voluminous Holmes-after-Doyle literature. --David Pitt

About this edition

• Publisher: Pegasus Crime
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1605986216
• ISBN 13: 9781605986210
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400