The Egyptian Curse (14 page)

Ronald A. Knox's Decalogue of Detective Fiction (1929)

1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.
   
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
   
3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
   
4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
   
5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
   
6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
   
7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.
   
8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
   
9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
   
10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.
    

A Word of Thanks

The authors would like to offer their special thanks for the support of the following people:

Ann Andriacco

Steve Emecz

Bob Gibson

Jeff Suess

Steve Winter

They also thank Arthur Conan Doyle for creating Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson.

About the Authors

Dan Andriacco
has been reading mysteries since he discovered Sherlock Holmes at the age of nine, and writing them almost as long. His popular Sebastian McCabe - Jeff Cody series so far includes the books
No Police Like Holmes
,
Holmes Sweet Holmes
,
The
1895
Murder, The Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore
, and
Rogues Gallery
.

A member of several scion societies of the Baker Street Irregulars since 1981, he is also the author of
Baker Street Beat: An Eclectic Collection of Sherlockian Scribblings
. Follow his blog at www.danandriacco.com, his tweets at
@DanAndriacco
, and his Facebook Fan Page at www.facebook.com/DanAndriaccoMysteries.

Dr. Dan and his wife, Ann, have three grown children and five grandchildren. They live in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Kieran McMullen
discovered Holmes and Watson at an early age. His father, a university English professor, found his reading skills lacking and so, the summer of his eighth year, assigned him the task of reading the complete Doyle stories before school started again in September.

After a twenty-two-year career in the U.S. Army, twelve years in law enforcement, and twenty years as a volunteer fireman, Kieran turned to writing about his favorite literary characters, Holmes and Watson. His first book,
Watson's Afghan Adventure
, centers on Watson's war experience before he met Holmes. His subsequent novels,
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Boer Wagon
and
Sherlock Holmes and the Irish Rebels
, concentrate on the duo's wartime experiences.
Sherlock Holmes and the Black Widower
goes in a different and surprising direction.

Kieran lives north of Darien, Georgia, on a few acres with his Irish Wolfhounds and Percheron draft horses. He has three children and six grandchildren.

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