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Lillian de la Torre

Nine mystery tales starring lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson in “the finest series of historical detective stories ever written” (Ellery Queen).

For over two hundred years, devotees of English literature have lost themselves in James Boswell’s Life of Johnson, a biography of the great eighteenth-century thinker and writer, chronicling everything from kitchen chemistry experiments to tackling a pickpocket to his legendary investigation of the Cock Lane ghost. But Dr. Sam Johnson was more than a great thinker—he was also a talented sleuth.

From the chilling affair of the waxwork cadaver to the thrilling search for the stolen seal of England, the nine cases in this volume show Johnson at his very best—using his legendary intellect to apprehend the worst killers and thieves the era had to offer.

Written by Lillian de la Torre, a mystery author with “a finely tuned ear for eighteenth-century prose, ” these charming stories are so believable, so perfectly in keeping with the Dr. Johnson we know and love, it’s hard to believe they aren’t true (TheNew York Times).

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

The Dr. Sam Johnson Mysteries

Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

Literary legend Samuel Johnson and his biographer, James Boswell, solve mysteries in eighteenth-century London in this delightful story collection. 

A brilliant thinker and his trusted assistant sit in their drawing room, pondering a story in the newspaper, when the door opens and the subject of the article enters, begging for help. It’s a classic scene from English detective fiction, set not at 221B Baker Street, but 1 Inner Temple Lane—the home of Dr. Samuel Johnson and his biographer, James Boswell. This mystery, concerning a disputed title, a kidnapped earl, and one of the greatest fortunes in England, will be no match for Dr. Johnson.

Based on true criminal cases of the era and inspired by Boswell’s legendary Life of Johnson, the seven stories in this volume touch on witchcraft, murder, theft, and the scientific breakthroughs of the Enlightenment.

“I am lost without my Boswell, ” said Sherlock Holmes—and Dr. Johnson was no different. Lillian de la Torre’s delightful stories of Boswell and Johnson show the original Watson and Holmes in action.

The Exploits of Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

James Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson team up to solve mysteries in this collection of brilliantly baffling historical crime stories.

James Boswell is just twenty-two when he comes south from Scotland, determined to befriend Dr. Sam Johnson, the greatest thinker of the eighteenth century. But when he first goes to call on the legendary scholar, a hue and cry is raised throughout the neighborhood because a wealthy old invalid refuses to come to her door. It’s barred from the inside, and when Johnson and Boswell break in, they find the woman dead.

There’s nothing like a good locked room mystery, and no detective quite as clever as Dr. Johnson. With Boswell at his side, he will solve the mystery of the barred door, using his wits against everything the killers and thieves of the Enlightenment throw his way.

Inspired by real case files from the era, the Dr. Johnson detective stories recreate this period of history with uncanny realism. Funny, challenging, and genuinely thrilling, they are perfect for anyone who’s been searching for an eighteenth-century Sherlock Holmes.

The Return of Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

Eight exquisite mystery stories set in London, starring Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of the greatest minds of the eighteenth century.

In 1775, as the British Empire is about to be cracked by the earthquake of the American Revolution, twenty English families join in the ghoulish bargain known as a tontine. Each puts £5,000 into a common fund to be held in trust for their children with the terrible stipulation that the money will go to the last child left alive. Such a bargain should take seventy or eighty years to come to fruition, but there is a curse upon this tontine. Sixteen of the twenty children are dead within four years—and the survivors have no one to turn to but the great Dr. Sam Johnson.

The seventy-year-old scholar has seen his share of trickery, corruption, and murder, but he’s never encountered anything quite as chilling as “The Tontine Curse. ” In this story, and the seven others included in this volume, Dr. Johnson and his assistant, biographer James Boswell, pit their wits against the darkest mysteries of the Enlightenment.

In this charming, brilliant series, author Lillian de la Torre features Johnson and Boswell, real-life forerunners of Holmes and Watson, in an assortment of “excellent detective puzzles” (The New York Times).