221A: The Untold Story of Baker Street
an excerpt

Prologue

I am no author. Nor can I say that I have ever harbored any particular desire to take up my pen and prove otherwise. No, the course of events that I shall relate to you are not of my own creation. I am simply a narrator; but that is how it should be for this story tells itself.

The course of events giving rise to my extraordinary tale began while I was still a student in law school. The year was 2006, and I was deeply immersed in all the worries and pressures that generally accompany a student of the law. The stresses of schoolwork had taken their toll and I had become generally apathetic with the direction in which my life was heading. Simply put: I was bored. I needed some excitement and the prospect of shuffling around papers for the next 30 years to pay off an education that I was beginning to regret was sobering, to say the least. So it was with a certain amount of surprise one cold, November morning that I opened my post box to find a letter from the office of Messrs. Harrison, Reed and Swaithe, solicitors. The letter bore a London post stamp and appeared to have been mailed a bit more than two weeks prior. It informed me, in the most dire and dry of legal language, that my great aunt Adelaide Hudson had recently passed away. Furthermore, the letter added, I had received an inheritance and I would be so kind as to contact the solicitor’s office, I should receive more information.