The Return of Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

By Lillian de la Torre

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.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: mysteriouspress.com
• Release date: Nov 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789540482

Lillian de la Torre

Lillian de la Torre (1902–1993) was born in New York City. She received a bachelor's degree from the College of New Rochelle and master's degrees from Columbia University and Radcliffe College, and she taught in the English department at Colorado College for twenty-seven years. De la Torre wrote numerous books; short stories for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine; reviews for the New York Times Book Review; poetry; and plays, including one produced for Alfred Hitchcock's television series. In her first book, Elizabeth Is Missing (1945), she refuted twelve theories on the disappearance of a maidservant near the Tower of London in 1753, and then offered her own answer. Her series of historical detective stories about Dr. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell comprise her most popular fiction. De la Torre served as the 1979 president of the Mystery Writers of America.