Theres a murder afoot, p.27
There's a Murder Afoot,
p.27
“I get it,” I said. “This actor is on British TV sometimes. If he’s been a guest on Sherlock or in one of the Holmes movies, it would be nice to have him visit. Aren’t you going to take off that coat? You must be hot. I like what you did with your hair.”
“I’m not finished. Anyway, Arthur once asked the son if he’d come to the store sometime. He hasn’t been able to because he’s been so busy. He’s going to be making a movie in New York in June, and he’s agreed to come for a visit to West London! To the Emporium! To us!” Ashleigh twirled around.
The long black coat. The scarf. The mop of curly dark hair.
“You don’t mean …” I said.
“Benedict Cumberbatch is coming here!”
I sat down. Fortunately a chair was at hand.
I took in every detail of the shop, the shelves lined with books, the merchandise table piled high, the scent of pastries, bread dough and coffee wafting in from the tearoom next door along with the happy chatter of patrons. Moriarty peering malevolently at me from under the center table.
As I’d said to my sister, I love owning this silly little store. Never a dull moment.
“Let’s get to work, shall we,” I said to Ashleigh. “Those books aren’t going to sell themselves.”
Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mysteries
A Scandal in Scarlet
The Cat of the Baskervilles
Body on Baker Street
Elementary, She Read
Lighthouse Library Mysteries (writing as Eva Gates)
Something Read, Something Dead
The Spook in the Stacks
Reading Up A Storm
Booked for Trouble
By Book or By Crook
Ashley Grant Mysteries
Blue Water Hues
White Sand Blues
Year-Round Christmas Mysteries
Hark the Herald Angels Slay
We Wish You a Murderous Christmas
Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen
Constable Molly Smith Mysteries
Unreasonable Doubt
Under Cold Stone
A Cold White Sun
Among the Departed
Negative Image
Winter of Secrets
Valley of the Lost
In the Shadow of the Glacier
Also Available By Vicki Delany
More Than Sorrow
Burden of Memory
Scare the Light Away
Author Biography
Vicki Delany is a national best seller in the U.S. and one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers. A former computer programmer and systems analyst, Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario. She is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada. This is her fifth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Vicki Delany
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-034-4
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-64385-035-1
Cover illustration by Joe Burleson
Book design by Jennifer Canzone
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
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New York, NY 10001
First Edition: January 2020
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Vicki Delany, There's a Murder Afoot











