James Innes Watson, the great-great-grandson of Dr. John H. Watson, has inherited all the manuscripts of his forebear. These include stories that, for whatever reason, Watson never came to publish. In this collection, The Case of Ailsa Craig, Holmes is summoned by an old university friend to a bleak island off the coast of Scotland. A lighthouse keeper has disappeared in apparent supernatural circumstances. The Amateur Cracksman, Scotland Yard approaches Holmes regarding a high society cracksman. It is only when Mycroft Holmes enters the investigation with a robbery of radio inventor Marconi that the case is solved. Sherlock Holmes in Cumbria, Holmes and Watson travel to the English Lake District to solve a murder case on the mountains. A second murder on the peak of one of Englands highest mountains, and then a theft from a family from Holmess past make up this north-country case.
