Book excerpt: Europe 1911. The Great Powers vie for influence and are divided by political quarrels. War is in the air. For retired detective Sherlock Holmes, who has just suffered a coronary, these distant matters are of little concern. But politics are about to turn his quiet country life upside down. Mycroft, the detective's politician brother, has asked Holmes to investigate the murder of a powerful industrialist and the mysterious kidnapping of the King's nephew. Could these two cases be connected? Thus the legendary detective and his old friend Watson set out on an all-new adventure, one that will take them from the canals of Venice to an ancient castle in the Scottish plains. It’s an adventure they could hardly have expected as they near the ripe old age of sixty. Will Holmes lose a lifelong friend? And which villain from Holmes’s past might want to start a world war…?