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The Lichfield Murder

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Every good city deserves a good murder...and Lichfield is no exception. When Henry Taylor of Lichfield comes to 221B Baker Street with the news that his young wife has been murdered, apparently by his son from his first marriage, Sherlock Holmes takes the train from Euston to investigate. What he discovers comes as a surprise to everyone except (of course) Sherlock Holmes himself.

36 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2016

4 people want to read

About the author

Hugh Ashton

66 books62 followers
Hugh Ashton was born in the UK in 1956. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, he worked in a variety of jobs, including security guard, publisher's assistant, and running an independent record label, before coming to rest in the field of information technology, where he assisted perplexed users of computers and wrote explanations to guide them through the problems they encountered.

A long-standing interest in Japan led him to emigrate to that country in 1988; writing instruction manuals for a variety of consumer products, assisting with IT-related projects at banks and financial institutions, and researching and writing industry reports on the Japanese and Asian financial industries, and writing promotional material for international business publications.

He has recently returned to the UK, and now lives in the cathedral city of Lichfield with his wife, Yoshiko.

He has recently published many volumes of highly-acclaimed Sherlock Holmes pastiches (the Deed Box and Dispatch-box series) with Inknbeans Press of California, with some reviewers hailing him as the re-incarnation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In addition, the list of his thrillers currently includes: At the Sharpe End, featuring an expatriate consultant living in Tokyo, Kenneth Sharpe, who finds himself thrust into a world of violence and high finance; Leo's Luck, a story of rock 'n' roll, crime, romance, and the paranormal; and Balance of Powers, set against the backdrop of the subprime mortgage crisis.

His historical works include: Beneath Gray Skies, an alternative history in which the American Civil War was never fought; Red Wheels Turning, set in an alternative Russia of 1917; and The Untime and The Untijme Revisited, Verne-ian 19th-century steampunk science fiction novels.

Children's books include the Sherlock Ferret series about the world's cutest detective, delightfully illustrated by Andy Boerger.

The collection of short stories Tales of Old Japanese describes some of the endearing characteristics of today's "silver generation" of Japan.

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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Profile Image for Lynne.
211 reviews4 followers
June 16, 2022
Ashton writes the best Sherlock Holmes pastiche stories I have read (and I've tried to read most of them, one time or another). This is a little chapbook with only one story, but it' a good story, and lives up to the original. Watson is so very Watson, which is harder to do than you might think, if other efforts are anything to go by. The story is somewhat shallower (if that's the right word) than canon Doyle, but Ashton is still very close. It's a good story and I liked it.

This is a copy of the review I posted for the Bloody Steps by the same author, because it's equally true.
436 reviews1 follower
December 24, 2023
Only one very short tale (an hour at most) in this little booklet, but a good one just the same - well worth reading.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews

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