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Thursday, January 21, 2016

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Dan Andriacco, Ann Margaret Lewis, and Bonnie MacBird at A Scintillation of Scions VII

The other day I dropped in the mail my completed registration form for A Scintillation of Scions, which has become the premier annual symposium on matters Sherlockian, Watsonion, and Doylean.

This will be the ninth edition, sponsored by Watson's Tin Box in Maryland, and the fifth I have attended. I posted on this blog about the program in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.

But don't just read about it - register!

There are at least three reasons you should do so:

Great speakers: This year's line-up is as impressive as ever. At least three of the names will be familiar to long-time readers of this blog - Al Gregory, Bonnie MacBird, and Diane Gilbert Madsen. Although I consider them all friends, I'm looking forward to actually meeting Al and Diane.

Great friends: There's that word again. Whether you know anybody there or not (and I didn't in 2012), you will be surrounded by 99 new friends. And the next year they will be even better friends. Founder Jacquelynn Bost Morris thinks of Scintillation as a Sherlockian family reunion. And so it is.

Great conference: A conference the size of this one has a thousand moving parts, and yet they always seem to mesh together with the smooth efficiency of a Swiss watch. Jacquelynn and her crew of Tin Boxers make it look easy.

At this point, June 10 and 11 seems a long way off, but registration is limited to about 100. Sign up now to make sure you're among them.

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MURDER AMONG SUPERVILLAINS

As a professor of popular culture in his day job, amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe knows a bit about superheroes, supervillains, and the various graphic novel universes. But that’s not much help when murder strikes at the Tri-State Comic Book Expo. Potential suspects number in the thousands, including some A-list Hollywood actors as well as comic book professionals and a collector. It all begins with Erin, Ohio-based artist-writer Parker Williams being accused of plagiarizing the character of his newest supervillain. Mac and best friend Jeff Cody take a special interest because they know Williams from another case. When accuser Gavin Frost-Pierson and Williams both shows up at the Expo, tensions run high. Before long, McCabe and Cody are dealing with murder in an elevator and a dying message that leads to a search for the mysterious woman in red—or perhaps not a woman at all—at an event in which many participants are costumed for cosplay. And in this third year of COVID, some individuals are un-costumed participants still wearing masks as well. Then again, not all masks are obvious. Who has a murderous heart? And what role does a forged comic book cover play? When a suspect flees police after the second murder, Police Chief Oscar Hummel is convinced he has the murderer. Sebastian McCabe is certain his old friend is wrong but has a hard time coming up with an alternative theory.

OLD MONEY MEETS MURDER

Shakespearean scholar and philanthropist Ezra Bainbridge, patriarch of one of Erin, Ohio’s wealthiest old families, lives quietly and happily at his Stratford Court compound with three triplet daughters until accusations of elder abuse roil the family. Amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe and his friend Jeff Cody are drawn into the controversy as objective observers but are soon ensnared in a puzzling series of horrendous murders, each one of which is marked by the presence of a flower. It takes McCabe and Cody to figure out the meaning of these floral tributes, but not until it is almost too late. At the center Stratford Court, and of the mystery, is an English garden around which stand the homes of Ezra Bainbridge and his daughters, all of them named for Shakespearean characters—Ophelia, the professor; Desdemona, the rebel; and Portia, the social climber. The story finds Erin much changed by the COVID-19 pandemic, with some of our old friends gone forever and others transformed. Readers of the early Ellery Queen mystery novels will find more than a passing similarity to those classics, from The English Garden Mystery title of the novel to the “Challenge to the Reader” at the point in the book where all the clues have been presented.

THE LIGHTER SIDE OF HOMICIDE

When suspicious husband Lloyd Wentworth hires the A-Plus Detective Agency & Famous Detectives School in the summer of 1991 to determine if his wife has been unfaithful, it seems like an old, familiar story to agency owner Francis Aloysius Finn. But the seemingly routine case gets weirder and weirder as Finn and his eccentric collection of student sleuths find themselves mixed up with mediums, murder . . . and Finn's mother. In this richly comic sequel to School for Sleuths, Finn and super-competent secretary Hilary Kendrake ultimately unravel the mystery with a solution that will satisfy the most demanding mystery fan.

A GHOSTLY MURDER

“The world is big enough for us,” Sherlock Holmes once told Dr. Watson. “No ghosts need apply.” But amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe and his chronicler Jeff Cody don’t have a choice when a popular TV reality show comes to Erin, Ohio, to record a Halloween special about the entity disturbing a local gastropub known as The Speakeasy. Jackie O’Brien was a bootlegger and speakeasy owner gunned down in 1920. Ever since, his unquiet spirit has been said to haunt the building where it happened – one which, after many transformations over the years, is once again a speakeasy of sorts. There may be skeptics, but Erin’s exorcist is not among them. Nor is Sebastian McCabe, who has been up close and personal with the ghost. Both are among those interviewed by Stuart Diamond, specialist in the strange, who has come to town along with Chef Stephen Lipinski and his producer wife to record the episode of the show Dining (Way) Out. What was expected to be some fun publicity for the gastropub turns into a nightmare after someone is shot to death one night in the same place and in the same way as Jackie O’Brien almost exactly 100 years earlier. Police Chief Oscar Hummel recognizes this as Mac’s kind of case, but Mac and Jeff are forced to become virtual sleuths most of the time when the restaurant and many other businesses are shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before he solves the murder–and a second homicide–Mac makes an embarrassing blunder in one lesser case and scores a great triumph in another. Bonnie MacBird says: “The wit and sly observations in the narrative voice are thoroughly enjoyable, and the mystery is deftly handled with the author’s signature expertise in plotting.”

One hundred years ago, for Christmas 1920, Chicago bookman Vincent Starrett gave the world The Unique Hamlet: A Hitherto Unchronicled Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Twenty years later, for Christmas 1968, August Derleth’s Mycroft & Moran publishing house printed Derleth’s The Adventure of the Unique Dickensians featuring Solar Pons (who is almost but not quite Sherlock Holmes), and a plot line that unmistakably plays off the story of “The Unique Hamlet.”

Now, on the centennial celebration of The Unique Hamlet’s publication, comes this special volume in the great tradition of Sherlockian Christmas books. Here we bring together for the first time “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” which is the only Canonical Christmas story, and the Starrett and Derleth pastiches first issued as Christmas presents. When considered together, the complex interrelations among these works – and their authors – make for a fascinating Sherlockian triptych.

Five delightful illustrations and three perceptive commentaries accompany each story, all specially produced for this book. A Three-Pipe Christmas is a wonderful present that will bring you a bit of Christmas whenever you pick it up. Buy it here.

There’s no holiday from homicide for amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe and his long-suffering brother-in-law, Jeff Cody. Murderers’ Row, their second casebook of shorter stories, collects three adventures connected with what should have been happy occasions.

When Meg Russert’s destination wedding on the tropical island of Barbados becomes A Destination Murder, Mac is a fish out of water dealing with a local police inspector less than impressed by his qualifications as a detective. But, as usual, Mac special help from a friend in high places. But will it be enough?

Erin’s annual Independence Day parade takes a stunning turn when a controversial activist looking on from the sidelines turns up Dead on the Fourth of July. Jeff, who was watching the victim the entire time, swears that only a magician could have committed this impossible crime!

When the estranged husband of an Erin Eagles supporter is shot to death outside the team stadium, Mac and Jeff find themselves involved in the offbeat world of independent minor league baseball. By the end of the case, Jeff solves a different mystery and loses blood. Buy it here!

As chief spokesperson for St. Benignus University in small-town Erin, Ohio, Jeff Cody’s job responsibilities include handling “crisis communications.” And a crisis it is when veteran journalist Maggie Barton calls Jeff on the day after Thanksgiving. She wants the whole story about a dean forced to step down because of complaints of inappropriate behavior from three women who worked for him.

But that’s just the overture to double murder at SBU, taxing the abilities of larger-than-life amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe and the police agencies of both town and gown. There are clues aplenty – too many, in fact. But how could the killer have entered the scene of the first murder without showing up on surveillance video? It seems like magic, or a locked room murder in a novel. Fortunately, Mac is a magician of no small ability as well as a mystery writer.

This ninth novel (and tenth book) of the McCabe-Cody series marks the debut of Aurelia Banfield, the disarming new assistant chief of St. Benignus University Police, and a farewell to two characters who have been part of the Erin scene from the beginning. Buy it now!

Francis Aloysius Finn, owner of the A-Plus Detective Agency & Famous Detectives School, gets more than he bargained for when Norris Beamer asks Finn to investigate his father's death. Is Viola, Beamer's new step-mother, really a black widow, or did her four elderly husbands die of natural causes? Is one of her neighbors involved? Or her boss? Or someone else . . . With the help of his somewhat wacky Famous Detectives School students and Hilary Kendrake, his temporary secretary, Finn uncovers a deadly scheme of drug-dealing and murder -- but will one of them be another victim? Find out!

Small town controversies can be murder.

When a newcomer to Erin, Ohio, proposes to tear down the historic Bijou Theater and erect in its place a boutique hotel, Sebastian McCabe adds “civic activist” to a long resume that already includes magician, mystery writer, professor, and amateur sleuth.

With the strategic help of brother-in-law Jeff Cody, Mac launches a far-reaching campaign to “Save the Bijou.” The issue becomes highly political when three eccentric mayoral candidates stake out their positions – which one of them switches after a hefty campaign contribution.

“The plot machinations of grand opera seem positively guileless by comparison!” Mac cries. Can homicide be far behind?

The opera comparison is a natural one, for the new Erin Opera Company is staging an original work with a Mardi Gras theme. As murder strikes again, this time back stage, Sebastian McCabe becomes aware that many of the actors in this real-life drama are wearing metaphorical masks as well.

Lynda Teal, Jeff’s wife, records much of Mac’s sleuthing for a podcast series, never imagining that the most dramatic audio of the concluding episode will come from the murderer. Buy it now!

"CAPITAL!" SAYS REVIEWER

Dan Andriacco is well established as a formidable detective story writer and (no great surprise) as a formidable Sherlockian. It was only a matter of time before he turned his hand to a full-length and full-blooded exploit of the sage of Baker Street – and what a cracker it is! Shortly after the Queen’s death brings an end to the Victorian era, Sherlock Holmes is invited to investigate an apparent vendetta against a young woman in Surrey. He and Dr Watson have often visited the county, but the scene of the attacks is an area even more familiar to a certain Arthur Conan Doyle, who in 1897 had moved his family from London to a small town near Haslemere, in an area already popular among writers and artists. Rumours of ghosts and occult rituals add an extra frisson to the atmosphere of mystery and suspense as the screw gradually, remorselessly tightens. And as a nice bonus we meet an old friend, the one police detective who is undeniably on the same level as Holmes himself. Capital!

Roger Johnson, BSI, ASH

Editor: The Sherlock Holmes Journal

Buy it here!

THE STORY

“Where do we hide the body?”

This is the startling question that Jeff Cody and his wife, Lynda, hear during a wedding reception on the first night of the QueenCon mystery conference in Cincinnati. Not only are the whispered words unnerving, there is no one nearby to have spoken them.

Jeff’s brother-in-law, mystery writer and amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe, discounts the puzzle with what seems to be a logical and reassuring explanation. But murder does come to QueenCon – and to a victim who seems to make no sense.

Mac’s usual freewheeling style of mystery-solving runs into a roadblock in the form of a homicide captain who has been his enemy since the seventh grade. So Jeff and Lynda wind up doing his legwork, and what they had expected to be a fun weekend is harder than any day at the office.

Queen City Corpse is available in all the usual places, including Amazon. Buy it now!

ALL IN THE FAMILY

When Erin, Ohio native Jamie Ellicott returns home as best-selling author James Ivanhoe after a 13-year absence, it’s like the return of the Prodigal Son. His ill and aging father welcomes him with open arms. Ivanhoe’s two brothers, however, are less forgiving.

The whole town gets drawn into the family drama when Ivanhoe seeks to march in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade under the banner of an anti-technology group called the Ned Ludd Society. That’s a thumb in the collective eye of his siblings, who own a company that makes microcircuits.

As a member of the parade committee, St. Benignus University communications director Jeff Cody has a stake in what soon becomes a heated national debate. But to his genius brother-in-law Sebastian McCabe, the contretemps becomes less important than investigating murder in the Ellicott family.

Erin Go Bloody once again demonstrates the skill that caused best-selling novelist Bonnie MacBird to call Dan Andriacco “a master of mystery plotting.”

ROGER JOHNSON SAYS:

Bookmarked for Murder is a real cracker. Not that I expected less! I love a good fair-play detective story, a mystery that baffles so that I'm desperate to know the solution - and the solution when it's explained is both surprising and satisfying.

Dan Andriacco gives us that, but he goes one better. I read on, not just because I want to know who killed the proprietor of the only used-book store in Erin, Ohio (bashed over the head with a replica of the Maltese Falcon), who has been peddling drugs to the athletes at St Benignus College, and who has been posting controversial footage of one of a history professor on YouTube. I read on because I like the sharp-witted, humane narrator, Jeff Cody, and his brother-in-law, Professor Sebastian McCabe - magician, detective-story writer, and formidable amateur sleuth. If Cody is Watson, McCabe is perhaps less Sherlock Holmes than a sort of sociable Mycroft.

This is excellent, intelligent entertainment.

THE STORY

London, 1924: When Alfie Barrington is stabbed to death outside his club, suspicion quickly falls on his widow, the lovely Sarah – and on her former beau, Enoch Hale. The American journalist has an alibi, but he doesn’t know her name and Scotland Yard can’t find her.

Determined to solve this case without the help of his friend Sherlock Holmes, Hale launches and investigation that brings him into contact with Leonard and Virginia Woolf, bohemian writers and publishers; P.G. Wodehouse, creator of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster; Howard Carter, discoverer of King Tut’s tomb; and one of the greatest mystery writers of all time.

A second murder sparks journalistic speculation of a curse related to Alfie’s time in Egypt as a competitor of Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarvon. Hale doesn’t buy that, but he doesn’t come up with a better solution until it is almost too late. And in the end, it is once again Sherlock Holmes who puts it all together.

This exciting historical mystery concludes the Enoch Hale – Sherlock Holmes trilogy that began with The Amateur Executioner and continued with The Poisoned Penman.

Reviewer Katie Magnusson called it "an engaging mystery."

"A DEIGHTFUL READ"

Dan Andriacco hits it out of the park with Rogues Gallery, a collection of short mystery stories featuring the two unlikely brothers-in-law and modern day Holmes and Watson of Sebastian McCabe and Jeff Cody. Narrator Cody is a sardonic, witty newlywed everyman while McCabe (rotund in the tradition of Nero Wolfe) is an avid, oddball Sherlockian with formidable powers of his own.

Andriacco’s distinctive tone delights – in a similar manner to the brilliant M.C.Beaton – with his combination of cozy, small town detail and hilarious and pointed observations of its denizens.

The cozy elements are all in the settings, here including an all-female art show, Christmas and Halloween parties, college politics and the developing relations of Cody and his new bride as they navigate newlywed issues. But unlike many mysteries with cozy elements, Andriacco’s plots are masterful.

Like a skilled close-up magician, Andriacco lulls you into what appears to be quiet Midwestern sense of normalcy, only to turn up an ace from his sleeve with a murderous surprise. You’re in the hands of a master of mystery plotting here. Rogues Gallery is a delightful read, hard to put down, and highly recommended. And did I say fun?

– Hollywood screenwriter Bonnie MacBird

THE STORY

London, 1922: Two years after helping Sherlock Holmes solve the Hangman Murders, American journalist Enoch Hale becomes even more intimately involved in another puzzling mystery. Langdale Pike, veteran purveyor of gossip to the trash newspapers, is poisoned while sipping tea with Hale – and apparently just as he is about to spill a secret more important than social gossip.

With the unrequested aid of advertising copywriter Dorothy Sayers, Hale pursues a number of leads based on notes in Pike’s pocket diary – including an interview with the formidable G.K. Chesterton.

Once again Enoch Hale and the theoretically retired but far from retiring Sherlock Holmes join forces to solve a crime that may have international complications. And this time Hale himself almost becomes a victim when he gets too close to the solution.

WHAT REVIEWERS SAY

"Andriacco has a light and engaging style that makes this a fun read . . . It's the fourth and best in the McCabe/Cody series." -- The Best of Sherlock website

"All-in-all, this is a fun read in a series that keeps getting better with each new tale." -- Philip K. Jones

"Andriacco’s writing, as always, is witty and assured. Jeff, Lynda and Sebastian are people you’d truly want to meet." -- The District Messenger, newsletter of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London

"The pacing is formidable, the dialogue sparkling with one liners abounding and wisecracks that Philip Marlowe would have admired. This is a very entertaining book indeed and throws into the mix a vast array of Holmesian insights and trivia. This series of novels by Dan Andriacco is becoming a byword for action-packed thrillers laced with a love of all things Sherlockian. The bottom line is....search them out.....and enjoy them." – Author David Ruffle

REVIEWERS LOVE IT

"It's a fast-paced and immersive read, barely allowing the reader to take a breath from page to page. But it's also a remarkable and masterful undertaking -- suggestive of something new and fresh, while remaining true to the source that shaped it." -- Better Holmes and Gardens

"Above all, the novel is enjoyable. It’s a quick read that can be digested in a few sittings, and the ending leaves the reader hoping for more. Andriacco and McMullen have done a masterful job of blending history, fiction, and Sherlock Holmes in a way that entices and delights." -- Girl Meets Sherlock

"In contrast to most tales involving Holmes, The Amateur Executioner takes us into an ambiguous and murky world where right and wrong aren’t always distinguishable. I look forward to reading more about Enoch Hale.” -- The Sherlock Holmes Society of London

"In telling the story, he authors have done a masterful job in melding actual historic figures with famous fictional characters." -- Kings River Life Magazine

"The blending of real characters, real history with fictional characters and fictional history is very well accomplished and at no time does the insertion of these 'guest stars' overshadow the very well thought out and exciting plot. There may not be a major part for Holmes to play, but his 'fingerprints' are all over the plot and you do gain the impression that this novel could only have been written by a Holmesian, or in this case, two Holmesians. It is a very enjoyable read, fast paced and undoubtedly fun. You see, collaborations can work. And work well." -- David Ruffle

REVIEWERS FIND MAGIC

The Baker Street Society says, "A first-rate pastiche, in fact it could scarcely be bettered. Short pastiches can be tricky things for writers to get right and indeed very few succeed wholly but here is one writer who does. Everything in this tale is spot-on. James Phillimore and his umbrella has been providing pastiche writers with rich pickings for years and exercising their collective imagination, but case closed, here is the definitive version."

Author Mike Hogan adds, "Twists and turns abound in this intelligent and well-written short story. As we have come to expect from Mr Andriacco, the prose and characterisations are true to the original Conan-Doyle stories, the dialogue is authentic in tone, and the late-Victorian background is convincing."

KUDOS FOR 1895

"The 1895 Murder is the most smoothly-plotted and written Cody/McCabe mystery yet. Mr. Andriacco plays fair with the reader, but his clues are deftly hidden, much as Sebastian McCabe hides the secrets to his magic tricks under an entertaining run of palaver. Jeff Cody’s stream-of-consciousness narration is amusing as always, and still more revealing than he might wish." - The Well-Read Sherlockian blog

“Reading The 1895 Murder, the third mystery in Dan Andriacco’s Sebastian McCabe/Jeff Cody series was like visiting a group of friends who, yet again, find themselves embroiled in a murder investigation. Andriacco’s masterful plotting had me stumped. When book four comes out, I will be one of the first to crack the cover.” – Kathleen Kaska, author of the Sydney Lockhart mystery series and the Classic Triviography books.

“Dan Andriacco has a writing style I would love to have. Dan has characters that have real lives and who you can identify with. His Jeff Cody character has great wit and McCabe great intelligence. His books are just fun to read." –Kieren McMullen, author of Watson’s Afghan Adventure and Sherlock Holmes and the Irish Rebels

It’s a pleasure to visit Erin again and to watch the solving
of a particularly baffling mystery. – The Sherlock Holmes Journal

British reviewer Ross K gives The 1895 Murder five "Napoleons" out of a possible six! Watch his video review.

THE REVIEWS ARE SWEET

"I loved Dan Andriacco's first novel about Sebastian McCabe and Jeff Cody, and I'm delighted to recommend the second, which has a curiously topical touch . . . The characters are engaging, the plot is cunning, and the writing is literate and witty. This is classy stuff!" -- Roger Johnson, The District Messenger, newsletter of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London

"Suspenseful twists and turns, laugh-out-loud humor, and a bit of romance had me turning the pages. This was Andriacco's second Cody/McCabe mystery, and I'm eagerly awaiting the third. In the meantime, I think I'll read Holmes Sweet Holmes again!"-- Kathleen Kaska, author of the Sydney Lockhart mysteries

"The writing is swift, well-paced and filled with whit. This is a great, lighthearted mystery and well worth the read. I admit I finally had to make myself put the book down and read it in two sessions or I’d never have made it to work in the morning." -- Kieran McMullen, author of Sherlock Holmes and the Irish Rebels

Ross K. Foad's video review gives Holmes Sweet Holmes 5 1/2 "Napoleons" out of a possible 6!

The Well-Read Sherlockian awards it 4 1/2 out of 5 stars in a detailed review!

READ THE REVIEWS

"The District Messenger," newsletter of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, calls Baker Street Beat "a very pleasant book," and compares it to "chatting over a drink with a knowledgeable fellow Holmesian."

Joe Revill, reviewing Baker Street Beat on his A Case of Witchcraft blog, also liked "The Wrong Cab" and "Reichenback Pilgrimage."

British video reviewer Ross K calls Dan Andriacco "a wonderful, creative, humorous writer."

The website Cult Britannia calls Baker Street Beat "an entertaining collection" and concludes "I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who has a love of Holmes and wants to learn more about him."

WHAT REVIEWERS SAY

Roger Johnson, the reviewer for The District Messenger, newsletter of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, calls No Police Like Holmes "an exciting and witty romp – not about Holmes but about his fans" and concludes "I like it!"

A longer review by Sue Magee of The Bookbag, a British an online review service says in part: "It's a satirical look at Holmes and the industry he's spawned, but it's affectionate and neatly constructed . . . There are plenty of twists, a good few red herrings and an ending which surprised me as I had someone entirely different chalked in as the murderer."

"No Police Like Holmes is a chocolate bar of a novel—delicious, addictive, and leaves a craving for more," says the blog Girl Meets Sherlock."Holmesians of all tastes and ages will recognize themselves in Andriacco’s characters and enjoy his fast-paced plot. Thankfully, the series continues, and fans can satiate their desire for more with Andriacco’s next novel, Holmes Sweet Holmes."

"No Police Like Holmes is a fun, literary read. In the hands of Andriacco, the above statement is not an oxymoron. Get this book, dive into a comfy chair, pour yourself a couple of fingers of scotch and enjoy this, sweetheart." So says Felicia Carparelli's Sherlock Holmes Murder Blog. But read the whole review! Felicia is no slouch at mystery writing herself, by the way.

British video reviewer Ross K calls No Police Like Holmes "very, very funny."

To Publisher's Weekly, the book is an "entertaining whodunit" and "Cody is engaging enough to make further books in the series welcome."

"Andriacco’s characters and their lives are so very normal and untormented, his writing style so light, and his observations so witty that No Police Like Holmes is an enjoyable, palate-cleansing romp of a mystery with a little Sherlockian education thrown in," advises The Well-Read Sherlockian. "Take it with you to the park or the beach and see if you can catch the culprit first!"

THE REVIEWS ARE IN

Felicia Carparelli's Sherlock Holmes Murder Blog calls this Sherlock Holmes pastiche "the closest in tone and content to a Holmes work that I have read in a long time."

British reviewer Ross K gives it six "Napoleons" out of a possible six!

Charlotte Anne Walters hails the story as "a lesson in Holmes pastiche from a skillful and genuine fan."

The link above is to the Amazon Kindle version, but "The Peculiar Persecution" is available in other e-book formats as well. The story also appears in Baker Street Beat.

Dan Andriacco's Baker Street Beat

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