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  • Location: London

Extraordinary Correspondence

Extraordinary Correspondence

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2026: Sherlock Holmes’s No. 1 fan attempts to solve a murder

  • ISBN: 978-1037417283
  • Genre: Crime

What you need to know before your trail

Sherlock Holmes’s No. 1 fan attempts to solve a murder – and drags his reluctant flat-mate with him, in the feelgood mystery of the Summer.

Sycamore Bell is obsessed with the world’s greatest (fictional) detective, and loves his job: answering the letters that arrive addressed to his hero at his employer’s Baker Street address.

Then a young girl writes from Texas begging Sherlock Holmes to save her father from death row, and Sycamore is convinced he can help. He knows all of his hero’s techniques, and now he has a chance to put them to the test.

When the case (inevitably) goes disastrously wrong, his new flatmate, James Watson, faces a dilemma: is it really his job to rescue Sycamore, solve the murder and generally save the day?

Travel Guide

London and Sherlock

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Baker Street street numbers did not go  up to 221. He chose “221B Baker Street” on purpose, because it was a fictional address.

However, when Baker Street was extended, they had to add more numbers to the street. In 1932, the Abbey Road Building Society ( Abbey National bank) set up between 219–229 Baker Street. This obviously included the iconic 221B address. As a result, the Royal Mail began delivering all mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes straight to the bank’s front doors.

The bank played along – even hiring a full-time secretary specifically tasked with handling the global influx of “Sherlock mail”.

BookTrail Boarding Pass: Extraordinary Correspondence

Destination/location:  London  Author/guide:  Robert Hutton    Departure Time: 2026

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