On this page

This page lists novels, short story collections and non-fiction by Barrie Roberts.

By Barrie Roberts
- novels / story collections
- non-fiction

Sherlock Holmes and the Railway Maniac

Barrie Roberts

1994

"Now in his third year of retirement, the celebrated master detective Sherlock Holmes announces his firm resolve to stay well out of the affairs of others to his old friend and colleague, Dr John Watson. But this emphatic sentiment is to be short lived. At the behest of his enigmatic brother, Mycroft, Holmes is persuaded to investigate two unexplained, catastrophic train derailments which have caused the death of more than forty people. Why would a criminal wreck an express train? As the clues accumulate - a strange astronomer, the German Intelligence Service, a Russian yacht in the port of Aberdeen - the most homicidal lunatic in Britain remains at large. Can even the strenuous efforts of Sherlock Holmes avert an international calamity and bring to justice this evil assassin?"

Buy from amazon.co.uk

Sherlock Holmes and the Devil's Grail

Barrie Roberts

1995

"The uncharacteristically nervous great detective tackles the case of the tobacco millionaire and the Glastonbury Fragments, one of the most bizarre investigations of Holmes' and Watson's long partnership. In the spring of 1895, Colonel John Vincent Harman, an American inventor of an ingenious camera, was the object of anonymous threats to leave Britain, escalating to the abduction of his son, Jay. Behind this criminal activity, Holmes detected the hand of Drew, his old enemy, Professor Moriarty's lieutenant, an ex-Scotland Yard detective and worshipper of Demeter, the goddess of fertility. Drew suspected that Harman's stereoscope could uncover the mystery of a perverse religious cult, a priceless treasure which, if possessed, Moriarty believes, would give him power over the whole world"

Buy from amazon.co.uk

Sherlock Holmes and the Man From Hell

Barrie Roberts

1997

"In 1886, wealthy philathropist Lord Backwater is found beaten to death on the grounds of his estate. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson must unravel the mystery by pitting their wits against a ruthless new enemy, taking them across the globe in search of the killer. By turns both thrilling and daring, "The Man From Hell" braves dark new territories in the Holmes mythology and is an invaluable addition to the library of any Holmes fan."

Buy from amazon.co.uk

Victory Snapshot

Barrie Roberts

1997

A Chris Tyroll novel.

"Sheila McKenna, an Australian social historian, flies to England to visit her grandfather after he sends her a rather intriguing letter. Almost as she arrives, her grandfather dies. Murdered. Chris Tyroll, maverick midlands solicitor, is drawn into the case and determined to find out who killed the old man. Almost immediately, somebody drives directly at Chris and injures him. Is Chris on the murderer’s hit list too? As Chris and Sheila investigate, they begin to uncover a fifty-year-old story of comradeship, corruption and criminality. Somehow, this story is connected to the death of Sheila’s grandfather. But why does it still matter, to somebody at least, half a century later? Chris and Sheila don’t know – but they do know that their lives are in danger. Only those on the margins of society seem willing to help the pair in their search for truth and justice – and are eerily able to foresee the outcomes. The authorities seem strangely disinterested."

Sherlock Holmes and the Royal Flush

Barrie Roberts

1998

"Holmes and Watson become embroiled in the murky world of international secret intelligence services in an attempt to foil a plot to ruin Queen Victoria''s Jubilee."

Sherlock Holmes and the Harvest of Death

Barrie Roberts

1999

"London swelters in a heatwave and Sherlock Holmes frets in inactivity until a young police constable arrives from the West of England. He has seen his sergeant, a man of great rectitude, ignore a confession of murder by a vagrant when a young girl was killed and the murderer never found."

Robbery With Malice

Barrie Roberts

1999

A Chris Tyroll novel.

"Just before the start of what should be an idyllic Christmas, two very different women manage to turn West Midland lawyer Chris Tyroll’s life upside down. One is his beautiful and no-nonsense fiancée, Sheila McKenna, who arrives unexpectedly at Heathrow. To Chris’s delight, she announces that she has arranged a year’s sabbatical in England. The other is the less shapely, but equally beguiling Granny Cassidy who persuades Chris to take on the appeal of Alan Walton; her son-in-law convicted in the infamous Belstone Lane Case. As a man who has served twelve years for crimes he claims he didn’t commit, Walton has nothing left to lose and is dead set on an appeal. To Chris the case initially seems hopeless, but sensing that something doesn’t quite add up and with scores of his own to settle, he reluctantly accepts the job. He and Sheila begin the daunting task of unearthing files that had been closed for eighteen years and searching for parties who frequently don’t want to be found. But troublesome enmities are awakened and witnesses are silenced — sometimes by murder. Repeated threats put the duo in danger until violent threats come to fruition and it becomes crystal clear that trouble awaits them if the case is probed any further."

Bad Penny Blues

Barrie Roberts

2000

A Chris Tyroll novel.

"Sheila McKenna, an Australian social historian, is in the UK to research and write a book about the nineteenth-century transportation of convicts from Britain to Australia. And when she buys a convict’s love token, in the form of an old, engraved copper penny, inspiration strikes. Sheila decides to find out more about the ‘JS’ who gave the token to his loved one, and armed with the name of the ship that took him to Australia, she begins her research. However, there was more than one convict with the initials JS aboard the Lucy Collins in 1865. Sheila investigates each one. Yet it soon becomes apparent that even more than a century later, somebody, somewhere, doesn’t want Sheila looking into their family history. Undeterred, and with the help of her fiancé, lawyer Chris Tyroll, Sheila begins to piece together the lives, loves and legacies of six men, all transported on the Lucy Collins, and their families. She works her way forwards through the generations, identifying, contacting and talking to some of those men’s descendants. Meanwhile, the threats to Sheila’s safety keep coming, and grow ever more serious. Over time, history and the modern age seem to intertwine. Are the actions and inclinations of convicts in past generations still afflicting their descendants? And if so, precisely who is going to such extraordinary – perhaps even murderous - lengths to hide it?"

Sherlock Holmes and the Crosby Murder

Barrie Roberts

2001

"Sherlock Holmes is facing only dull professional prospects in London when Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard arrives at 221b Baker Street with a most peculiar parcel. After a swift but adept examination of the contents inside an ordinary shoe box tied with tarred twine, Holmes announces that the small, leathery-looking object before him is nothing less than the shrunken head of Algernon Crosby, a banker who had gone missing in London six weeks earlier. The rest of Crosby’s body, scarred and disfigured, has meanwhile been fished from the Thames. The mystery surrounding Crosby’s bizarre and gruesome murder is compounded by other significant missing pieces. Crosby’s yacht, the Gyrfalcon, which recently took him and his small crew on a trip to America and the West Indies, has vanished, and with it a burly deckhand known as Teddy the American. The discovery of a curious word chart in Teddy’s lodgings puts Holmes and Watson on the trail of a solution. Together they unravel a dangerous plot of curses and a revenge that reaches across the world to a mountain wilderness in America’s West. But before Holmes is able to close an investigation that will end in a violent confrontation with the killer in a warehouse on the London docks, Watson will find himself in deadly peril when he is trapped in a heathland pit with three hissing, poisonous lizards."

Crowner & Justice

Barrie Roberts

2002

A Chris Tyroll novel.

"Chris Tyroll is a busy litigation lawyer in the West Midlands. He'd like to have long lunches, play golf and holiday in the Seychelles, but he puts up with early starts, no lunches and late nights. One morning three clients come to him with totally different problems. The first, an Employment Tribunal case against British Defence Systems, looks complicated. BDS manufactures a seek-and-destroy weapon, ‘The Retaliator.’ The dismissal of one man has triggered a strike and two more workers have been sacked as a result. Then Tyroll deals with a distraught mother who cannot accept her son’s death and wants to get the coroner’s verdict changed from suicide to murder. And finally he’s met with a man who asks: why can’t an empty field be used to graze ponies? Tyroll investigates these cases with the aid of his sharp and beautiful girlfriend Sheila McKenna as they weave their way through clues and deal with their own relationship issues. But when another client dies, and a chance comment by a witness reveals that all three cases are somehow connected, Tyroll realises he’s in deeper than he thought. Tyroll finds himself and Sheila in a deadly confrontation. Can he save her? Can he even save himself?"

Sherlock Holmes and the Rule of Nine

Barrie Roberts

2003

"When a series of bizarre accidents befall small shopkeepers who have recently taken precautions to protect their premises, Sherlock Holmes is the first to discern a pattern, to the befuddlement of his most loyal friend. It seems someone is running a protection racket, and more, murder is involved, so Holmes teams up with a New York detective who has travelled to London to get to the bottom of the Rule of Nine."

Sherlock Holmes and the King's Governess

Barrie Roberts

2005

"The summer of 1897 brings visitors flocking to London for Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. With them comes a Russian nobleman, as well as an English lady from Canada. This lady calls on Holmes and Watson for their assistance in dealing with strangers who are following her. The mystery deepens when Holmes recognizes one of them as the head of Russian Intelligence in London. What dreadful deed occurred on the plains of Russia more than twenty years before? What has a charitable lady in Sussex, whose fiance was murdered years ago, got to do with it all? Danger escalates as Holmes investigates, until he is forced to find an unusual refuge for his client."

Sherlock Holmes and the American Angels

Barrie Roberts

2007

"Spring 1902. Holmes finds a body in Regents Park, and when a Scottish lawyer is found murdered on the same day, he senses a conspiracy connected with the Jacobites. Holmes and Watson head for Scotland, convinced a collection of golden angels hidden at the time of the American War of Independence is now sought by the conspirators who assassinated the president."

Midland Ghosts and Hauntings

Barrie Roberts

1994

Midland Murders and Mysteries

Barrie Roberts

1997

Midland Spirits and Spectres

Barrie Roberts

1998

Murder in the Midlands

Barrie Roberts

2000

A Taste of Murder

Barrie Roberts

2004