The "lost years" Sherlock Holmes are revealed through the scroll of a Bengali scholar who traveled with the great detective in Asia. 20,000 first printing.

The "lost years" of Sherlock Holmes are revealed through the scroll of a Bengali scholar who traveled with the great detective in Asia.

In 1891, the British public was horrified to learn that Sherlock Holmes had perished in a deadly struggle with the archcriminal Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Then, to its amazement, he reappeared two years later, informing a stunned Watson, 'I traveled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa.' Nothing has been known of those missing years until Jamyang Norbu's discovery, in a rusting tin dispatch box in Darjeeling, of a flat packet carefully wrapped in waxed paper and neatly tied with stout twine. When opened the packet revealed Huree Chunder Mookerjee's (Kipling's Bengali spy and scholar) own account of his travels with Sherlock Holmes. Now for the first time, we learn of Holmes's brush with the Great Game and the world of Kim. We follow him north across the hot and duty plains of India to Simla, summer capital of the British Raj, and over the high passes to the vast emptiness of the Tibetan plateau. In the medieval splendor that is Lhasa, intrigue and black treachery stalk the shadows, and Sherlock Holmes confronts his greatest challenge.

In 1891, the public was horrified to learn that Sherlock Holmes had perished in a deadly struggle with the archcriminal Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Then, to their amazement, he reappeared two years later, informing the stunned Watson: 'I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa' Nothing has been known of those two missing years until Jamyang Norbu's discovery, in a rusting tin dispatch box in Darjeeling, of a flat packet carefully wrapped in waxed paper and neatly tied with stout twine. When opened the packet revealed Hurree Chunder Mookerjee's own account of his travels with Sherlock Holmes. Now, for the first time, we learn of Sherlock Holmes's brush with the Great Game, with Colonel Creighton, Lurgan Sahib and the world of Kim. We follow him north across the hot and dusty plains of India to Simla, summer capital of the British Raj, and over the high passes to the vast emptiness of the Tibetan plateau. In the medieval splendour that is Lhasa, intrigue and black treachery stalk the shadows, and in the remote and icy fastnesses of the Trans-Himalayas good and evil battle for ascendancy. As Patrick French has written, 'Read th

In 1891, a horrified British public learnt that Sherlock Homes - in a last deadly struggle with arch criminal Professor Moriarty - had perished at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. Two years later, popular demand made Conan Doyle resurrect the great detective. Holmes informs a stunned Dr. Watson: 'I traveled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa.' This is all that the world has known of Sherlock Holmes' journey to the East. Jamyang Norbu - an avid reader of Kipling and Doyle - decides to take the matter in his hands; to investigate Holmes'stay in Lhasa, Tibet. What he unearths is the Mandala, written by a wily Bengali scholar, Hurrie Chunder Mookherjee, Holmes 'traveling companion. The Mandala holds the key to the mystery and revelas that it is difficult to resist. An exciting, often richly humorous detective story The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes also evokes the romance of Kipling's India.