Lauren Wilkinson’s 'A Scandal in Brooklyn' subverts Sherlock Holmes

Available now from Amazon Original Stories—free with Prime—Wilkinson’s latest page turner includes a virtual reality death and a Black female lead who keeps readers guessing.

There’s a new super-sleuth in town. Author Lauren Wilkinson—the award-winning writer of one of President Obama’s favorite reads in 2019, American Spy—is revealing her thriller-writing prowess in a new Sherlock-Holmes-inspired short that asks readers to wonder: In a case most peculiar, how elementary can it be?

In A Scandal in Brooklyn, Wilkinson takes readers inside a top-secret experiment at a restricted virtual reality compound that pulls fictional attorney Tommy Diaz back into the orbit of the brilliant detective Irene Adler, an old friend with an eidetic memory, a love of true-crime podcasts, and a knack for solving the unsolvable.

But this? At a remote warehouse, a willing test subject for a virtual reality trial, alone in the observation room, drops dead of anaphylaxis—from the sting of a virtual bee. Though the tech titan behind the research believes in the power of the outrageous, Irene relies on clues, hard facts, and a level head to solve the mystery behind the virtual experiment gone awry.

Like all Amazon Original Stories, A Scandal in Brooklyn is available at no cost to Prime members as an eBook or audiobook, and is also available to Kindle Unlimited members the day of its release. Non-members can also purchase the title for $1.99, receiving the eBook and audiobook together.

After reading A Scandal in Brooklyn, see if you can test your deduction skills by catching all the clues hidden in Amazon Original Stories’ other incredible mysteries and thrillers, all available for free with Prime in digital and audio with Audible, or through Kindle Unlimited. Like A Scandal in Brooklyn, each story can be read or listened to in one sitting.

Randomize
By Andy Weir

In the near future, if Vegas games are ingeniously scam-proof, then the heists have to be, too, in this imaginative and whip-smart story by the New York Times best-selling author of The Martian. For once, the odds may not favor the house—unless human ingenuity isn’t entirely a thing of the past. Randomize is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors.

Slow Burner
By Laura Lippman

A woman watches her marriage implode over text message and decides that ignorance is not bliss in this bitterly satisfying short mystery by the New York Times best-selling author of Lady in the Lake. Liz Kelsey promised herself she’d never again spy on her feckless husband, Phil. But then she discovers a string of suggestive texts on his secret burner phone. What’s more dangerous—what Liz knows, or what Phil doesn’t? Laura Lippman’s Slow Burner is part of Hush, a collection of six stories, ranging from political mysteries to psychological thrillers, in which deception can be a matter of life and death.

The Princess Game
By Soman Chainani

There are no happy endings for the Princesses of Chaminade High in this short, twisty tale of teenage murder games by the New York Times best-selling author of The School for Good and Evil series. The victims are the most popular girls in school, each murdered and arranged in a grim fairy-tale tableau. To find the killer, rookie detective Callum Pederson has gone undercover where the Princes hold court. The Princess Game is part of Faraway, a collection of retold fairy tales that take the happily-ever-after in daring new directions.

Turning Point
By Jeffery Deaver

International best-selling author Jeffery Deaver delivers surprise after alarming surprise in Turning Point, an ingenious story about a serial killer, a detective, and a twisting duel of wits. A serial killer is trolling a Midwestern suburb. His tools: a hammer, a screwdriver, floral wire, a kitchen knife and, to complete his errand, a Russian nesting doll—left behind as a calling card. From one grisly crime scene to the next, detective Ernest Neville is driven to desperate measures to get to the core of this diabolical puzzle haunting the people he’s sworn to protect.

Will Williams
By Namwali Serpell

In a modern retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s William Wilson, a young Black man’s paranoia escalates as he is followed, challenged, and terrorized by a doppelgänger bent on sabotaging his life. Drifting from city to city, Will’s doing everything in his power to outrun his shadow. Will Williams is part of Disorder, a collection of six short stories of living nightmares, chilling visions, and uncanny imagination that explore a world losing its balance in terrifying ways.

The Woman in the Strongbox
By Maureen O'Hagan

In this tantalizing true mystery of a stolen life, an acclaimed reporter and an identity theft investigator follow a series of incredible revelations about the actual identity of a wife, mother, and friend turned perfect stranger. The Woman in the Strongbox is part of Missing, a collection of true stories about finding, restoring, or accepting the losses that define our lives—from the mysterious to the inspiring.

Zenith Man
By Jennifer Haigh

Whatever had been going on inside the shuttered old house, the couple who lived there kept it to themselves. Among the locals, there’s only chilling speculation. Neighbors are shocked when Harold Pardee reports his wife dead. No one even knew the eccentric TV repairman was married. With Zenith Man, New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Haigh delivers an endearing short story about our misguided perception of strangers, the nature of love, and the need for secrets as part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones.

An image of the cover art for the book "Little Slaughter House on the Prairie."

Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie
By Harold Schechter

Part of the Bloodlandstrue-crime collection that examines the United States’ dark history, Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie details the story of the Bender family. At a remote little inn not far from the Kansas homestead of Laura Ingalls Wilder, these pioneers welcomed unwary visitors with jackrabbit stew and a sledgehammer to the skull.

01 / 08

Find more reads from Amazon Original Stories, an imprint of Amazon Publishing.