Holmes & Watson LLC

Leading the comfortable life of the semi-retired in Savannah, the duo of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, the city's (and, really, the world's) most noted Black detectives, are awakened from their professional slumber by a series of most unusual murders all tied by the common thread of one particular song from many years earlier; a popular R&B number by a Black singer who died under foggy and questionable circumstances while performing to a mixed-race audience.

But the story really begins much, much earlier at Howard University during an evolutionary moment in America's history: a time of struggle and violence and appeasement, when smoking weed was a given, and Gladys Knight was at the top of the charts and her game.

Dr. Watson begins this memoir by recounting in the prelude this chance encounter with Holmes, brother Howard student of mixed-race also, that would forge a life-long friendship and lead to a most unusual partnership. Along the way, Missus Hudson finds employment in their old, renovated mansion as housekeep - she a former nun of the Discalced Carmelites of Port Tobacco, whose interest in this, as it is in many other cases, is on the fringe.

The investigation takes them on several journeys to points in time and place, concluding at Toccoa Falls 200 feet above the roiling river winding its way through the hills of Georgia. A struggle of both morality and strength pits Holmes against the man behind the killings, the shadowy Ari Omit Y'r.

As Howard alumni, they joined the ranks of, "Zora Hurston, Thurgood Marshall, (Vice President) Kamala Harris, and even Puff Daddy (whomever he may be, per Holmes)..." along with Holmes's attorney, Perry Mason (No, not that one) who represents him in an action following Holmes's beating at the hands of small-town Virginia cops who do not know who he is, after being stopped on a back road early-morning following a meeting with Agent Lestrade at the NSA.

Holmes maintains a working relationship with the NSA as does his older brother Mycroft, who has worked for various three-lettered agencies since his graduation from West Point. Mycroft is identified as retired, but active likely with the CIA. (Mycroft had suggested that both he and Sherlock are the illegitimate offspring of Patrice Lumumba, more as a joke, but causes Watson some moments of reflection.)

Now, on the ebb of his medical profession when this book takes place, Watson's medical practice, conducted in the old Carriage House renovated in the early part of the last century, consists of much in the way of pro bono services to the community.

Does Holmes survive his encounter with Ari Omit Y'r? Will Watson and Missus Hudson live through the loss of Sherlock? Will Ari Omit Y'r be brought to justice? (Will I stop asking questions?)

Find out! Enjoy a good and entertaining read today.