A GLORIOUS SHERLOCK HOLMES-INSPIRED MYSTERY FOR FANS OF NITA PROSE AND JANICE HALLETT London, 1932. When Harriet White rebuffs the advances of her boss at the Baker Street building society where she works, she finds herself demoted to a new position… a very unusual position. Deep in the postal department beneath the bank, she is tasked with working her way through a mountain of correspondence addressed to Baker Street’s most famous Mr Sherlock Holmes. Seemingly undeterred by the fact that Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist, letter after letter arrives, beseeching him to help solve mysteries, and Harry diligently replies to each writer with the same response: Mr Holmes has retired from detective work and now lives in Sussex, keeping bees. Until one entreaty catches her eye. It’s from a village around five miles from Harry’s family estate, about a young woman who went to London to work as a domestic, then disappeared soon afterwards in strange circumstances. Intrigued, Harry decides, just this once, to take matters into her own hands. And so, the case of the missing maid is opened…

It is the middle of the summer, but there is an unseasonal mist pressing against the windowpanes. Harry Potter is waiting nervously in his bedroom at the Dursleys' house in Privet Drive for a visit from Professor Dumbledore himself. One of the last times he saw the Headmaster, he was in a fierce one-to-one duel with Lord Voldemort, and Harry can't quite believe that Professor Dumbledore will actually appear at the Dursleys' of all places. Why is the Professor coming to visit him now? What is it that cannot wait until Harry returns to Hogwarts in a few weeks' time? Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts has already got off to an unusual start, as the worlds of Muggle and magic start to intertwine...

Harry Potter is about to start his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Unlike most schoolboys, Harry never enjoys his summer holidays, but this summer is even worse than usual. The Dursleys, of course, are making his life a misery, but even his best friends, Ron and Hermione, seem to be neglecting him. Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...