Showing results by narrator "Stephen Thorne" in All Categories

Today, the pace of change is so great that no company can afford to wait to respond to new developments. You need nimble and creative problem solving, and the most intelligent and efficient decision-making doesn't come from the top - it comes from your employees on the frontlines who interact with customers and have the ability to see and respond to the shifting landscape before anyone else.

Watson and Holmes are engaged by the prime minister and the European secretary to help recover a sensitive stolen political document. Tracking the document to a recently murdered spy, Holmes realizes that the European secretary’s wife actually has the letter. The questions immediately pile up in this tale of international intrigue, blackmail, and double-dealing.

A young rugby player asks Holmes and Watson for help finding his missing teammate before a big game. The client explains that his missing teammate disappeared with an older man after sending a mysterious telegram. Holmes and Watson, using forensic techniques on the telegram, track the missing player to a nearby town. After being stonewalled by the doctor of the missing player, Holmes finally finds him with the help of a tracking dog. Then Holmes and Watson learn the shocking secret of the man’s disappearance.

A young man working as the assistant to a professor has been murdered. While it appears that anyone could have entered the house and committed the murder, a clue in the form of a pair of gold glasses is found near the body. Working on the assumption that the killer wore the glasses as well as several other clues, Holmes comes to the chilling realization that the murderer is still in the house.

Sherlock Holmes and Watson, on a research trip in a university town, are approached by a professor. The professor believes someone has entered his office and seen, and perhaps copied, the examination papers he is to administer the next day. Holmes begins by narrowing down the suspects to three students who live nearby. After studying several innocuous pieces of evidence, he believes he has identified the culprit. All that remains is to elicit the confession.

Someone is destroying small busts of Napoleon Bonaparte. At first merely a nuisance, vandalism quickly turns to murder after one of the statue owners finds a dead man on his doorstep beside a smashed statue. Reasoning his way back to the source of the statues, Holmes determines that there is more to this case than just antipathy toward the great French leader. Can Holmes and Watson solve the mystery before the bust buster strikes again?

Sherlock Holmes is hired by a lady who is being harassed by Milverton, a notorious blackmailer who has ruined many people and caused much grief. Though he is determined to stop him, Milverton is very crafty, and Holmes is unable to find the evidence necessary to put him away. Finally, Holmes and Watson decide on a daring plan to retrieve their client’s incriminating letters. While there, they witness a crime that forces Holmes and Watson to make a momentous choice.

The distraught head of an elite boarding school hires Holmes and Watson to investigate the sensitive disappearance of the young heir of a local nobleman. Searching in the fields surrounding the school, they make a grisly discovery - the dead body of one of the boy’s teachers. Sensing the growing danger to the young boy and suspecting the interference of the duke’s secretary, Holmes and Watson question the duke himself, who reveals a shocking detail to them.

A young woman explains to Holmes that an unknown man has been following her by bicycle on her weekly trips from the house where she works to the railroad station. Having met two friends of her recently deceased uncle, one of the men, Carruthers, hires her as a governess and later proposes to her. The young woman, being already engaged, declines. The other man, Woodley, disturbs her with rude behavior and romantic advances. Holmes connects the clues and arrives in time to solve the mystery of the unknown cyclist and to save Smith after she is kidnapped by Woodley.

A Norfolk country squire from a reputable family hires Holmes to help him learn who has been sending him weird encoded messages, in the form of dancing stick figures, that are disturbing his wife. Upon collecting enough of the messages, Holmes cracks the code. He returns to Norfolk to present his findings only to find that his client has been met with tragedy. Using forensic science and his inimitable powers of deduction, Holmes is able to assist the Norfolk authorities and identify the criminal.

A young lawyer asks Holmes to clear him of the charge of murdering a rich man soon after preparing the man’s will. Inspector Lestrade is convinced of the young attorney’s guilt and believes he has finally bested Holmes, but by the use of forensic science and a bogus house fire, Holmes is able to exonerate the young lawyer while proving he was set up.

Whether at work or at home, success is something we strive for in all aspects of our lives. And while there are a number of obvious things you should be doing in order to achieve your goals and reach success, there are also some not-so-obvious ones. Entrepreneur Voices on the Science of Success offers data and research-backed tools and tactics for both business and personal achievement from entrepreneurs and small business owners including Tim Ferris, Brian Tracy, and Reid Hoffman.

The US has the largest criminal justice system in the world. Because they spend enough time in prison to disrupt their connections to their families and their communities, they are not prepared for the difficult and often life-threatening process of reentry. As a result, the percentage of these people who return to a life of crime and additional prison time escalates each year. Beyond Bars is the most current, practical, and comprehensive guide for ex-convicts and their families about managing a successful reentry into the community.

The Red-Headed League is the second of the 12 stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which was published in 1892. In it, Jabez Wilson, a flame-haired London pawnbroker, comes to consult Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Some weeks before, Wilson responded to a newspaper want ad offering highly paid work to only redheaded male applicants.

In "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", Inspector Lestrade summons Sherlock Holmes to a community in Herefordshire, where a local landowner has been murdered outdoors. The deceased's estranged son is strongly implicated. Holmes, employing his trusty magnifying glass quickly determines that a mysterious third man may be responsible for the crime, unraveling a thread involving a secret criminal past, thwarted love, and blackmail.

A young London engineer, contracted to service a hydraulic press at a country house, discovers that the owner is using the machine for illegal purposes. After confronting the owner, the engineer narrowly escapes death and loses a thumb when the owner turns on him. Sherlock Holmes deduces the actual use of the machine and sets off to bring the evildoers to justice.

In "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", Violet Hunter asks Sherlock Holmes whether she should accept a job with very strange conditions. She has been offered £120 per year as a governess, but only if she will cut her long hair short. This is only one of many peculiar conditions to which she must agree. The employer, Jephro Rucastle, seems pleasant enough, yet Miss Hunter obviously has her suspicions. After a fortnight, Miss Hunter beseeches Holmes to come and see her in Winchester, as the situation has become even stranger. This is the last of the 12 stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

In "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor", Miss Hatty Doran, after several strange episodes on the day of her marriage to Lord St. Simon, disappears from the reception. St. Simon tells Sherlock Holmes that he noticed a change in the young lady's mood just after the wedding ceremony, having been uncharacteristically sharp with him. Also unusual: she dropped her wedding bouquet and a gentleman in the front pew handed it back to her.

A banker, Mr. Alexander Holder, makes a loan of £50,000 to a socially prominent client, who leaves a beryl coronet - one of the most valuable public possessions in existence - as collateral. Feeling that he must not leave this rare and precious piece of jewelry in his personal safe at the bank, he takes it home with him. Awakened by a noise in the night, he is horrified to see his son playing with the coronet and apparently trying to bend it. Three beryls are now missing from it. In a panic, Mr. Holder travels to see Holmes, who agrees to take the case.

In The Adventure of the Speckled Band, Sherlock Holmes and Watson come to the aid of Helen Stoner, who has reason to fear her life is being threatened by her abusive stepfather, Dr. Grimesby Roylott. Her sister, who died two years before, spoke of a "speckled band" right before she died in mysterious circumstances. To solve the mystery of the "speckled band", Holmes and Watson stake out Miss Stoner's room and make a momentous discovery. The eighth of the 12 stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle considered it the best of the Holmes stories.