Book excerpt: Spring 1937. While German Chancellor Adolf Hitler ceaselessly talks of peace, his actions seem deliberately calculated to make the Western allies lose patience. The schizophrenic geopolitical atmosphere even can be felt as far away as Fulworth, England, the home of the retired Sherlock Holmes, where the Steiners, a German migrant couple, have recently found a refuge and have assumed care of the detective's household after the passing of Mrs Hudson. Spying and detective work are far from the thoughts of beekeeping enthusiast Holmes, but the suicide of his protégé - a local youth whose natural talent the detective developed and encouraged for ten years - is a heavy blow. The death without apparent motive has now pulled Holmes back into the world, which has changed dramatically. Steam power has given way to electricity, carriages have been replaced by automobiles, and the skies are dotted with giant airships. The only thing that has remained constant is evil, in the shape of an enemy with whom Holmes first tangled more than forty years ago…