John Rigopoulos

The Xortaags are back with a vengeance. Not being the forgive-and-forget types, they’ve conquered the Akakie homeworld, and now they set their sight upon Earth. Having reverse-engineered the advanced technology they scavenged on Kanoor, they now hold the key to rule the universe forever. It now befalls to Jim and his friends to save not only humanity, but every sentient species in the galaxy.

It is March 1938. A print worker petitions Holmes about the disappearance of a fellow worker at the Daily Mail. Holmes investigates, and after interviews with the newspaper’s proprietor, Viscount Rothermere, and with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German ambassador, it becomes clear the missing print worker has died fulfilling a commission for the German ambassador, although it is not clear what the commission is.

We are in London in 1890, and the British Museum plans to exhibit the contents, brought specially to London, of a newly excavated Egyptian tomb. The event is disturbed by the murder of a museum watchman. A suspect is quickly found, a young museum assistant, caught red-handed with a bloodstained knife. But things are not so simple; behind this apparently clear case Holmes uncovers, piece by piece, just as did the archaeologists, a complicated story of blackmail, violence, and treachery that at every step threatens him, and Watson, with deadly consequences.