The Brand of the Flying Four: A Reverend Ezekiel Black Western Mystery

This case all began one quiet evening-very quiet; bordering on boring-while we were sitting by the hearth in our rooms in Kansas City. A few weeks later, a murder, perhaps the most gruesome I had ever witnessed in all my born days, took place in Denver, immediately above our heads. By the time it all ended, justice, of the frontier variety, not the courtroom, had been meted out. If you want to know how it all happened, you'll have to read this story. Jim Watson, M.D. Denver, 1883 Reverend Ezekiel Black receives a call to provide pulpit supply for a church in Denver. Soon after his arrival, a beautiful young nurse from his congregation seeks his help in finding her long lost father and in solving the mystery of the anonymous notes and boxes of gold nuggets she has been receiving in the mail. The story is inspired by "The Sign of the Four" by Arthur Conan Doyle, and like that story it combines murder most foul, and romance most enticing.

Craig Stephen Copland is a native of Toronto and, a long time ago, was an English major who studied under both Northrup Frye and Marshall McLuhan at the University of Toronto. In May of 2014, the Sherlock Holmes Society of Canada - better known as The Bootmakers (www.torontobootmakers.com) - announced a contest for a new Sherlock Holmes story. Although he had no experience writing fiction, the author submitted a short Sherlock Holmes mystery and was blessed to be declared one of the winners. Thus inspired, he has continued to write new Sherlock Holmes mysteries since. He created the legendary detective of the American West, The Reverend Mister Ezekiel Black, so that the science of deduction could be transferred to the days of the frontier. He is on a mission to write a tribute Sherlock Holmes story and a Reverend Ezekiel Black story for every one in the Sherlockian Canon. He currently writes from Toronto, Tokyo, and Manhattan and can be reached at CraigStephenCopland@gmail.com