The Italian Secretary - Sherlock Holmes Author:Caleb Carr Caleb Carr, bestselling author of The Alienist, makes his own contribution to the ever-popular subgenre of Holmes pastiche with this historical mystery commissioned by the Conan Doyle estate. — Renovation of the Royal Palace of Holyrood, Queen Victoria's Edinburgh residence, is disrupted when two of the workers are murdered. One of t... more »he Queen's closest counselors, Mycroft Holmes, summons his brother Sherlock to discover the perpetrator and determine whether the deaths represent any threat to the throne. Noting that details of the murders recall the long-ago brutal stabbing of David Rizzio, an Italian secretary who served Mary, Queen of Scots, Holmes wonders if the present-day deaths have a supernatural, rather than an earthly, cause.« less