A scholar of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes fiction is found dead of strangulation in London. The scholar, hot on the trail of a missing Conan Doyle archive, had claimed somebody was out to get him shortly before his death. The victim is found with a bootlace around his neck. Also found at the scene of the crime: a spoon; soft toys; and gin. When friends call the apartment, an unfamiliar American voice plays on the answering machine. A writer picks up the trail and finds himself face to face with a shadowy high-ranking Pentagon official and amateur Sherlock Holmes buff. This is all part of an unbelievably good New Yorker article coming out this week by David Grann, one of those New Yorker articles that only comes along once or twice a year. The article isn’t available online, but this interview with the writer is.
