Book excerpt: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is obsessed with a legendary red book. Its peculiar stories have come to life, and rumors claim that it has rewritten its own endings. Convinced that possessing this book will help him write his ever-popular Sherlock Holmes stories, he takes on an unlikely partner, John Patrick Scott, known to most as a concert musician and paranormal investigator. Although in his humble opinion, Scott considers himself more of an ethereal archeologist and a time traveler professor. Together they explore lost worlds and excavate realms beyond the knowledge of historians when they go back in time to find it. .... Silent Meridian reveals the alternative histories of Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Houdini, Jung and other notable liuminaries in the secret diaries of a new kind of Doctor Watson, John Patrick Scott, in an X Files for the 19th century. -- Cover, page [4]