Art in the Blood

London, 1888. A Ripper investigation has gone badly wrong, and Sherlock Holmes has sunk into a deep depression that Dr Watson cannot lift. What stirs him is an encoded letter from Emmeline La Victoire, a French singer.

Her son Emil, aged ten, is her child with the Earl of Pellingham and has vanished, possibly kidnapped. Holmes and Watson cross to Paris to look for him.

There they learn that the Earl, a well-known art collector and humanitarian, may be implicated in the theft of the priceless Marseilles Nike. He may also be linked to the disappearance and murder of young boys who worked in his silk factory. The boy's father is therefore a suspect, not a source of help.

The search is slow to begin. A French rival detective stands in the way, Mycroft obstructs them, and a series of apparently connected murders pulls the pair in other directions before they can look for Emil. This is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, a mystery that moves between London and Paris with a missing child at its centre and a respected nobleman under suspicion.