Mlle La Victoire, a beautiful French cabaret star writes that her illegitimate son by an English lord has disappeared, and she has been attacked in the streets of Montmartre.Racing to Paris with Watson at his side, Holmes discovers the missing child is only the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem.

A beautiful client arrives with a tale of ghosts, kidnapping and dynamite on a whisky estate in Scotland, but brother Mycroft trumps all with an urgent assignment in the South of France.On the fabled Riviera, Holmes and Watson encounter treachery, explosions, rival French Detective Jean Vidocq… and a terrible discovery.

It’s 1890 and the newly famous Sherlock Holmes faces his worst adversary to date – a diabolical villain bent on destroying some of London’s most admired public figures in particularly gruesome ways. A further puzzle is that suicide closely attends each of the murders.

In Whitechapel, a renowned Italian escape artist dies spectacularly on stage during a performance – immolated in a gleaming copper cauldron of his wife’s design. In Cambridge, the runaway daughter of a famous don drowns, her long blonde hair tangled in the Jesus Lock on the River Cam.

AIt’s Christmas 1890, and games are afoot. In a packed Oxford Street, a man tries to kidnap a young woman’s child, but Holmes and Watson leap to their rescue and the assailant escapes empty handed. Who would do such a thing? And more importantly – will he strike again?