The House of Silk: The New Sherlock Holmes Novel

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Lee Jackson who greatly helped with the research for this book. His excellent website, www.victorianlondon.org, is a brilliant (and free) resource for anyone interested in the period. Two books that I found particularly useful were London in the 19th Century by Jerry White and Life in Victorian Britain by Michael Paterson although I also borrowed liberally from contemporary authors including George Gissing, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Arthur Morrison and Henry Mayhew. Thanks also to the Sherlock Holmes Society who have (so far) been genial and supportive and in particular to one of their number, Dr Marina Stajic, who kindly shared her knowledge of forensic toxology with me at the House of Commons. My agent, ‘agent of the year’, Robert Kirby first suggested this book — and at Orion, Malcolm Edwards has been incredibly patient, waiting eight years for me to write it. Finally, above all, I must acknowledge the genius of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle whom I first encountered when I was sixteen and whose extraordinary creation has inspired so much of my own work. Writing this book has been a joy and my one hope is that I will have done some justice to the original.