Plot summary
In August 1923, Mary Russell and husband Sherlock Holmes receive an unexpected visit from Dorothy Ruskin, an elderly amateur archeologist from the Holy Land, who met the couple four and a half years earlier during the events from O Jerusalem (novel). As a gift, Ruskin presents Russell with an inlaid box containing a papyrus scroll, which seems to be a genuine first-century letter by Mary Magdalene. When she returns to London that evening, Ruskin is killed in a hit-and-run accident with only two witnesses.
When Holmes and Russell visit London to identify the body, they discover evidence of foul play. Before her murder, Ruskin had argued with a sponsor of the digs, Colonel Dennis Edwards. A letter from her sister Mrs. Erica Rogers, who cares for their aged mother, reveals that two Middle Eastern visitors were also looking for Ruskin after her visit home. Finally, Holmes and Russell find their Sussex home ransacked by three suspects who were looking for papers, perhaps for Mary’s papyrus scroll. When Russell translates Mary’s letter, she finds that Mary calls herself an apostle of Jesus, and contemplates the theological and historical implications.
Three distinct suspects and possibilities emerge: Colonel Edwards, who did not know he was sponsoring a woman’s project, could have been enraged to violence; the Middle Eastern visitors may have been from a Palestinian family with a grudge against Ruskin; and Rogers was resentful toward her sister, though according to Ruskin’s will, she does not benefit from Ruskin’s early death. To pursue each different line of investigation, the four split their forces: Mycroft Holmes looks into the Middle Eastern visitors, Holmes goes into Erica Rogers’s employ, while Inspector Lestrade directs the efforts of the police, and Russell finds work as Colonel Edwards’s secretary.
In Colonel Edwards’s employ, Russell grows to like the colonel but is repelled by his misogyny as well as Gerald, his lecherous son. She also finds strong evidence of the colonel's antagonism against Ruskin, but nothing more incriminating. After a week of investigations, Russell, Mycroft, and Lestrade have little to show, but Holmes has succeeded in finding parts of the car that killed Ruskin, salvaged from scraps sold by Jason Rogers, Erica Rogers’ grandson. Holmes also produces a letter from Ruskin to Rogers, implying that Erica Rogers is suffering from a mental illness. Building the case, Holmes then persuades Russell to use the hypnotization techniques practiced on her as a child after her family’s death on one of the witnesses to Ruskin’s murder. Russell’s efforts help unlock memories of that evening, and the witness identifies Jason Rogers as the perpetrator. However, when Erica Rogers is brought in, she discerns that the authorities have little solid evidence and no motive, and refuses to cooperate.
Frustrated, Holmes and Russell return home to brood over the case, searching for a hidden motive. Russell recalls that Ruskin had complimented Holmes’s hands and his ability to solve puzzles, bringing both of them to realize the box she left them with may have a hidden compartment. Holmes successfully opens it to reveal another will that Ruskin had drawn up leaving all her money to the archeological digs. Upon hearing of the changed will, Erica Rogers suffers a massive stroke and Jason Rogers commits suicide, while their third accomplice is brought to justice. Holmes deduces that Erica Rogers had masterminded the entire plot to keep most of their family's fortune from going to the archeological digs, and suspected her sister of lodging a will with Holmes, thus precipitating the ransacking of the Sussex home. In the epilogue, Russell states that Mary’s letter will not be published until after her death, and hopes that her heirs will find a world more accepting of the letter and its contents.
"The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow (1917), and is the second and final main appearance of Mycroft Holmes. It was originally published in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom and in Collier's in the United States in 1908.
Mary Russell is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes mystery series by American author Laurie R. King. She first appears in the novel The Beekeeper's Apprentice.
A Study in Terror is a 1965 British thriller film directed by James Hill and starring John Neville as Sherlock Holmes and Donald Houston as Dr. Watson. It was filmed at Shepperton Studios, London, with some location work at Osterley House in Middlesex.
Terror by Night is a 1946 Sherlock Holmes crime drama directed by Roy William Neill and starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. The story revolves around the theft of a famous diamond aboard a train.
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The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Or On the Segregation of the Queen is the first book in the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King. It was nominated for the Agatha best novel award and was deemed a Notable Young Adult book by the American Library Association.
The Enola Holmes Mysteries is a young adult fiction series of detective novels by American author Nancy Springer, starring Enola Holmes as the 14-year-old sister of an already famous Sherlock Holmes, twenty years her senior. There are nine books in the series, and one short story all written from 2006–2023. This pastiche series borrows characters and settings from the established canon of Sherlock Holmes, but the Enola character is Springer's creation and specific to this series.
The Game is the seventh book in the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King, which focuses on the adventures of Russell and her partner and, later, husband, an aging Sherlock Holmes.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is a 1980 Soviet film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes. It is the second film in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson film series directed by Igor Maslennikov.
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This article describes minor characters from the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and from non-canonical derived works. The list excludes the titular character as well as Dr. Watson, Professor Moriarty, Inspector Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes, Mrs. Hudson, Irene Adler, Colonel Moran, the Baker Street Irregulars, and characters not significant enough to mention.
Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud is the first novel in the Young Sherlock Holmes series that depicts Arthur Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes as a teenager in the 1860s and 70s. It was written by Andrew Lane and released in the UK on June 4, 2010 by Macmillan Books.
"The Reichenbach Fall" is the third and final episode of the second series of the BBC television series Sherlock. It was written by Stephen Thompson and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson, and Andrew Scott as Jim Moriarty. The episode deals with Moriarty's attempt to undermine the public's view of Sherlock and drive him to suicide. The episode was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC One HD on 15 January 2012. It attracted 9.78 million viewers, and critical reaction to the episode was positive. After the episode was aired, there was also much online and media speculation, which focused on Sherlock's death.
"The Abominable Bride" is a special episode of the British television programme Sherlock. The episode was broadcast on BBC One, PBS and Channel One on 1 January 2016. It depicts the characters of the show in an alternative timeline: the Victorian London setting of the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. The title is based on the quote "Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife" from "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" (1893), which refers to a case mentioned by Holmes. The story also draws on elements of original Conan Doyle stories of Holmes such as "The Five Orange Pips" (1891) and "The Final Problem" (1893).
"The Six Thatchers" is the first episode of the fourth series of the British television programme Sherlock, and the eleventh episode overall. The episode was first broadcast on BBC One, BBC First, PBS and Channel One on 1 January 2017.
Enola Holmes 2 is a 2022 mystery film and the sequel to the 2020 film Enola Holmes, both of which star Millie Bobby Brown as the title character, the teenage sister of the already-famous Victorian-era detective Sherlock Holmes. The film is directed by Harry Bradbeer from a screenplay by Jack Thorne that adapts the book series The Enola Holmes Mysteries by Nancy Springer. Unlike the film's predecessor, it does not adapt one of Springer's novels and instead takes real-life inspiration from the 1888 matchgirls' strike. In addition to Brown, Henry Cavill, Louis Partridge, Susie Wokoma, Adeel Akhtar, and Helena Bonham Carter reprise their supporting roles, while David Thewlis and Sharon Duncan-Brewster join the cast.
