The young archduke Josef Anton Salvator of Austria has vanished, along with his impostor. An eight-year-old servant boy lies dead at the foot of a cliff near Loch Rannoch in Scotland. The assistant manager of Huperman & Co., manufacturer of the finest vaults in England, has been run down and trampled by horses in a London street. And two of Dolly Marigold's fancy girls have disappeared. So has the Great Blue, a spectacular uncut five-thousand-carat De Beers diamond.Alan Vanneman's new novel featuring the world's greatest literary detective extends the boundaries of the Sherlock Holmes canon with a knotty investigation that takes the celebrated sleuth and Dr. Watson far from cozy comforts of 221B Baker Street. Indeed, enjoying the luxuries of the Orient Express, they travel the breadth of fin-de-siecle Europe to exotic Constantinople, though not strictly in pursuit of pleasure. For death, too, is traveling first-class, and it comes scented with perfume, opium, and snuff.As Holmes strives to unmask a foe as ruthless and elusive as any he has encountered, he finds himself facing opposition from Scotland Yard, the constabulary, the Foreign Office, and personages no less than Cecil Rhodes and the young Winston Churchill as well. Conveyed by his investigation into a world of high finance rife with political intrigue and criminal corruption, he vies with jewel thieves, diamond smugglers, American millionaires, peers of the realm, the governments of three great empires, and the enchanting lady of fortune Madame la Comtesse D'Espinau to gain possession of an invaluable prize: the fabulous Hapsburg tiara. In its splendor lies the cause for more than one crime. Read Less