The West End Horror (1977)

First released in hardcover in 1976, this is the mass market paperback edition of Nicholas Meyer's second Holmes novel, The West End Horror. The cover has a cut out window that opens up to a full illustration showing the book's major players (below).

THE GAME'S AFOOT AND HOLMES IS GIVING CHASE!

March 1895. Menace stalks the renowned West End. A maniac more terrifying than Jack the Ripper is on a rampage through London's glamorous theater district.

What baffles Scotland Yard is elementary to the great detective–until Holmes finds himself in the clutches of the grisly murderer!

With the ever faithful Dr. Watson by his side, Baker Street's legendary sleuth sets out to snare the  elusive killer with the help or hinderance of  struggling writer George Bernard Shaw, Gilbert and Sullivan, a controversial wit named Oscar Wilde and London's novelist woman, actress Ellen Terry.

Title: The West End Horror
Author: Nicholas Meyer
Year: 1977
Publisher: Ballantine
Purchase: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The West End Horror (1976)

Nicholas Meyer's follow-up to his best-selling first Holmes novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.

March, 1895. London. A month of singular occurrences in the West End. First there was the bizarre murder of theatre critic Jonathan McCarthy; the police were baffled. Then came the lawsuit against the Marquess of Queenbury for libel; the public was scandalized. And what of the ingenue at the Savoy, discovered with her throat slashed? Or the police surgeon who disappeared talking with him two corpses from the mortuary?

Some of the theatre district's most fashionable and creative luminaries (as well as a number of more marginal participants) were involved or affected by these events: a penniless stage critic and writer named Bernard Shaw; Ellen Terry, the gifted actress and loveliest woman in London; Gilbert and Sullivan; a suspicious box office clerk named Bram Stoker; and aging matinee idol, Henry Irving; an unscrupulous publisher calling himself Frank Harris; and a controversial wit by the name of Oscar Wilde. 

Scotland Yard is mystified by what appear to be unrelated cases, but to Holmes the matter is elementary: a maniac is on the loose.

Title: The West End Horror
Author: Nicholas Meyer
Year: 1976
Publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co.
Purchase: Amazon.