Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance (Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage) - Softcover

Millett, Larry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816677050 ISBN 13: 9780816677054

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press, 2012

Synopsis

As the city of Minneapolis prepares for a visit from President William McKinley, someone else prepares for murder. On the day before the visit, a union activist is found hanged, naked, outside a ruined mansion. A placard around his neck reads “THE SECRET ALLIANCE HAS SPOKEN.” Who is the alliance? What does it want? How was the victim involved with the city’s corrupt mayor? And why did he possess a photograph of a prominent citizen in a compromising position? Shadwell Rafferty searches for answers, encountering bribery, corruption, union organizers, anarchists, and conspiracy, putting himself in danger. But as luck would have it, his old friends Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson are on their way.

In this fourth installment of Larry Millett’s Minnesota Mystery series, Shadwell Rafferty commands center stage in a brand-new city. Packed with Millett’s signature historical and architectural detail, this book is deviously delightful.

About this title

About the Author:

Larry Millett was a reporter and architecture critic for the St. Paul Pioneer Press for thirty years. He is the author of fifteen books, including five other mystery novels in this series featuring Sherlock Holmes and Shadwell Rafferty, all in new editions from the University of Minnesota Press.

From Publishers Weekly:

In Millet's fourth, well-researched Holmes in Minnesota adventure (after 2001's Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery), flamboyant Irish saloonkeeper Shadwell Rafferty scents an impending bloodbath when Michael O'Donnell, a young union man and mill worker, is found hanged, naked, from an oak tree in downtown Minneapolis. Around the victim's neck is a placard: "The Secret Alliance Has Spoken." Everyone assumes it is a warning from the paramilitary anti-union Secret Alliance, but no one seems to understand its significance. Rafferty seeks help from Holmes, who's in New York on a case for John Jacob Astor. The world's greatest private consulting detective doesn't enter the action until the novel's half over, though entries from Dr. Watson's journal at the start of each chapter keep the reader informed of his thoughts and movements. Turn-of-the-century Minneapolis on the eve of a visit from President McKinley comes vividly to life as one of the most corrupt cities in America, rife with evil schemes and dirty deeds. Rafferty is no deductive wizard like Holmes, but a street-smart, methodical man who plods from witness to witness to discover the truth behind O'Donnell's lynching, which, in the end, proves amazingly complex. A columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the author is obviously in love with local history. Both Holmes fans and historical mystery buffs should be pleased. Agent, Bob Barnett.

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About this edition

• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0816677050
• ISBN 13: 9780816677054
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 334