7The previous diaries of Arthur Conan Doyle tell of the shadowy real life Sherlock Holmes, a medical school dropout. While in the laboratory of Dr. Joseph Bell, a brilliant Edinburgh surgeon, Holmes learned anatomy, surgery, observation and deduction. These skills and his ability to solve crimes led to his recruitment by the British secret service. In this the last of three diaries, Doyle recounts a series of murders and the pursuit of a sinister Russian assassin from Edinburgh to the Yosemite Valley in California. When the case, involving a California millionaire and Chinese tongs becomes desperate, the British secret service sent Sherlock Holmes. The case ended in his death but the great detective lives on in the novels by Arthur Conan Doyle.

John Raffensperger, MD, a retired pediatric surgeon, operated on babies with birth defects and children with cancer for nearly fifty years then turned to writing medical history and fiction. His interest in Dr. Joseph Bell, the Edinburgh surgeon and the model for Sherlock Holmes led to this trilogy.

Richard Krevolin, playwright, book doctor and artist provided the inspiration and the idea for using lost diaries as a vehicle for telling the story.