Unquiet Spirits: Whisky, Ghosts, Adventure
The new novel from the author of Art in the Blood. December 1889. Fresh from debunking a “ghostly” hound in Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes has returned to London, only to find himself the target of a deadly vendetta.A beautiful client arrives with a tale of ghosts, kidnapping and dynamite on a whisky estate in Scotland, but brother Mycroft trumps all with an urgent assignment in the South of France.On the fabled Riviera, Holmes and Watson encounter treachery, explosions, rival French Detective Jean Vidocq… and a terrible discovery. This propels the duo northward to the snowy highlands. There, in a “haunted” castle and among the copper dinosaurs of a great whisky distillery, they and their young client face mortal danger, and Holmes realizes all three cases have blended into a single, deadly conundrum.In order to solve the mystery, the ultimate rational thinker must confront a ghost from his own past. But Sherlock Holmes does not believe in ghosts…or does he?
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This book is a new and original work of fiction featuring Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson, and other fictional characters that were first introduced to the world in 1887 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, all of which are now in the public domain. The characters are used by the author solely for the purpose of story-telling and not as trademarks. This book is independently authored and published, and is not sponsored or endorsed by, or associated in any way with, Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. or any other party claiming trademark rights in any of the characters in the Sherlock Holmes canon.
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Bonnie MacBird 2017
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Drop Cap design © Mark Mázers 2017
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Bonnie MacBird asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008129712
Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008201104
Version: 2017-09-22
For Rosemary and Mac
Contents
PART FOUR â A CHILL DESCENDS
PART FIVE â THE DISTILLATION
35. You Must Change Your Thoughts
Several years ago, while researching at the Wellcome Library, I chanced upon something extraordinary â an antique handwritten manuscript tied to the back of a yellowed 1880s treatise on cocaine. It was an undiscovered manuscript by Dr John H. Watson, featuring his friend, Sherlock Holmes, published in 2015 as Art in the Blood.
But what happened last year exceeded even this remarkable occurrence. An employee at the British Library whom I shall call Lidia (not her real name) found Art in the Blood in her local bookshop, and upon reading it was struck by the poignancy of Watsonâs manuscript surfacing so long after the fact.
It triggered something in her mind and shortly afterwards, I received a phone call in my newly rented flat in Marylebone. This was curious, as our number there is unlisted. She identified herself as âsomeone who works at the British Libraryâ but would not give her name, and wanted to meet me at Notes, a small café next door to the London Coliseum. She refused to give me any information about the purpose of this meeting, saying only that it would be of great interest to me.
I could not resist the mystery. I showed up early and took comfort in a cappuccino, watching the pouring rain outside. Eventually a woman arrived, dressed as she had told me she would be with a silk gardenia pinned on the lapel of a long, black military-style coat. A pair of very dark sunglasses and a black wig added to her somewhat theatrical demeanour.
She carried a large nylon satchel, zipped at the top. It was heavy, and the sharp outlines of something rectangular were visible within. âLidiaâ then sat down, and in deference to her privacy I will not reveal all she told me. But inside her bag was a battered metal container that had come from the British Libraryâs older location in the Rotunda of the British Museum many years ago. It had somehow been neglected in the transfer to the new building and had languished within a stained cardboard box in a basement corner for some years.
It was an old, beaten up thing made of tin and was stuck shut. She pried it open gently with the help of a nail file.
