Sherlock Holmes, Watson, Moriarty, Father Brown, Carnacki, Auguste Dupin and others seek to foil the fiendish plans of the most diabolical mastermind to ever threaten the world... "Mrs Hudson rocks gently on the hammock and thinks about all the detectives she has bedded. There are very few she hasn’t had. She has also had most of the important villains. Raffles is a particular favourite of hers. She once wore a very secure chastity belt for an encounter with him and he picked the lock in a matter of moments. Moriarty is also good between the sheets. Flambeau too. All in all, the villains are better at foreplay than the heroes are. The heroes tend to want to get the business over with as quickly as possible. They don’t relish the ravish. No matter. She takes what she can get. And what she can get is a lot." "Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet’s literature. He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef’s sardonic confections, certainly not in English.” — MICHAEL MOORCOCK "If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.” — SAMUEL R. DELANY "It’s a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists.” — JEFF VANDERMEER