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Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Sherlock Holmes and the Nine-Dragon Sigil Book Tour

A new adventure awaits Holmes and Watson
Cover

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE
NINE-DRAGON SIGIL
Tim Symonds
Genre: Mystery and Thriller
Publisher: MX Publishing
It's the year 1907.
Rumours abound that a deadly plot is hatching - not in the fog-ridden back-alleys of London's Limehouse district or the sinister Devon moors of the Hound of the Baskervilles but in faraway Peking. Holmes's task - discover whether such a plot exists and if so, foil it. But are the assassins targeting the young and progressive Ch'ing Emperor or his imperious aunt, the fearsome Empress Dowager Cixi? The murder of either could spark a civil war. The fate of China and the interests of Britain's vast Empire in the Orient could be at stake.
Holmes and Watson take up the mission with their customary confidence – until they find they are no longer in the familiar landscapes of Edwardian England. Instead, they tumble into the Alice In Wonderland world of the Forbidden City.

Excerpt


Watson Is Invited To The Foreign Office To Meet An Oriental Potentate

The newly-constructed Bakerloo Line on the Underground took me to Embankment followed by a short walk along the Thames to the Foreign Office & India Office. The Departments were housed in a vast Victorian Italianate building deliberately designed to impress, like the Royal Courts of Justice, providing a sumptuous setting for affairs of state and diplomatic functions. I was ushered into the Durbar Court. Doric columns on the ground floor and Ionic on the second were of polished red Peterhead granite, while the top floor Corinthian columns were of grey Aberdeen granite. The flooring was of Greek, Sicilian and Belgian marble.
A man in livery greeted me. To my surprise he led me out of the building to a small side-entrance overlooking the Charles Steps and St. James’s Park. Almost furtively the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, was waiting there. We shook hands, the Foreign Secretary greeting me with a polite ‘Good to see you again, Dr. Watson’. Throwing a cautionary glance at a fog-spectacles hawker on the opposite pavement, he said, ‘For the sake of privacy I’d like to hold our chat in St. James’s Park. At Duck Island Cottage on the lake. You’d be astonished at what our friends in the daily Press get up to, to winkle out a story.’
He continued, ‘The War Minister will be there but it’s the other person you’re here to meet, a Chinese potentate, General Yuán Shì-kǎi. Yuán is the surname.’


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About Tim Symonds

Much of Tim Symonds’ writing is done in all weathers in nearby woods, seated on canvas chairs left dotted around at favourite spots.
Tim Symonds was born in London, England, and grew up in Somerset, Dorset and the Channel Island of Guernsey, off the coast of Normandy. After spending his late teens farming in the Kenya Highlands and driving bulldozers along the Zambezi River, he moved to California and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA with an honours degree in Politics.
He lives in the ancient woodland known as the High Weald of Sussex, where the events recounted in Sherlock Holmes and The Dead Boer at Scotney Castle took place. His second novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Bulgarian Codex (MX Publishing 2012), took Holmes and Watson into the very depths of the Balkans in 1900. Holmes and Watson were back in the region – Serbia - in Sherlock Holmes And The Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter (MX Publishing 2014), and not long afterwards in ‘Stamboul’ investigating a plot against the despotic Sultan, in Sherlock Holmes And The Sword of Osman (MX Publishing 2015).
Official Tim Symonds website: http://tim-symonds.co.uk/

Book Tour Schedule

Follow the book tour. Ongoing till February 4, 2017.
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