It was an incredible year, the start of a new century. Queen Victoria
was still on the throne, the Paris Exposition was the talk of Europe and
Count Zeppelin was conquering the air. The Tsar had completed the
Trans-Siberian Railway, the Boxer Rebellion surged through China, in
South Africa the Boers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State defied
the British Empire, and at home Sherlock Holmes was at the peak of his
powers. It was not a case of when the great detective's powers were
needed but where. Mycroft sends for both his brother Sherlock and Dr
Watson to help solve the mystery of lost secret plans and of missing
gold in the fight that will become the Second Boer War. Watson
accompanies his friend Dr Arthur Conan Doyle and Langman's Hospital to
the battlefields of the Boer Republics as Holmes tries to stop the leak
of information and recover a king's ransom. The biggest question is who
to trust in a land ravaged by war and with countless conflicting
loyalties. Will Holmes and Watson stop the leak before Lord Roberts
tries to take Pretoria?