My new Sherlock Holmes novel, The Twelve Thefts of Christmas, is published today! Here’s a picture of me in an unironed but halfway-festive shirt to celebrate.

There are plenty of knotty mysteries within the shiny golden covers of this beautifully designed hardback, but I’ve also tried to make the tone like a sort of ‘holiday special’. It features loads of Holmes favourites in prominent roles: Irene Adler, Mrs Hudson, Mary Watson, Inspector Lestrade, even good old Toby the dog.

Here’s the description:

Sherlock Holmes’s discovery of a mysterious musical score initiates a devious Christmas challenge set by Irene Adler, with clues that are all variations on the theme of ‘theft without theft’, such as a missing statue found hidden in the museum gallery from which it was taken.

In the snowy London lead-up to Christmas, Holmes’s preoccupation with the Adler Variations risks him neglecting the case of his new client, Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who has received a series of threats in the form of animal carcasses left on his doorstep. Could they really be gifts from a strange spirit that has pursued Nansen since the completion of his expedition to cross Greenland? And might this case somehow be related to Irene Adler’s great game?

Find out more about the book here.