An Admiralty courier is murdered, and plans for the Dreadnought — a new battleship that will upset the balance of naval power — are stolen. All evidence implicates Great Britain’s international rival: Germany. Tasha is summoned to help solve the crime. She is thus observed by DEIRDRE, the Priestess of a malevolent cult intent on exacting vengeance on Western Civilization for the long-ago decimation of her religious sect. Cleverly leveraging the greed of giant armaments firms in England and Germany, Deirdre plans to frame Germany in an attack on the Dreadnought. In her arrogance, Deirdre decides to simultaneously engage Tasha in a contest of wits. The story moves from fog-bound London to a desolate island off the coast of Scotland. Deirdre manipulates Tasha's overconfidence, crafting a mystery to lure her into a labyrinth of false leads, lethal traps, and an unexpected romance. As Tasha pieces together the puzzle, Deirdre plays her top card and strikes at Tasha's vulnerable heart by kidnapping her young daughter - left defenseless in her Mother's occupational absence. It is an epic struggle between two formidable women: one madly intent on enslavement and revenge, the other fighting for a free and rational humanity—as well as the precious life of her only daughter.
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Finished it, but didn't really like it. It started from the first image, which somehow screamed “modern pretending to be old”, and the rest of them didn't get any better. The blend of Arthur Conan Doyle's creation with this also rankled with me, especially as “Lady Sherlock” seems to be nigh on omnipresent and the portrayal of Mycroft did not at all gel with my own impressions from repeating reading of the works of Sherlock Holmes. The story wasn't too bad but I found everything else too infuriating to really care by the end. It probably would have been a better book if the characters had different names, didn't include characters from ACD's world, and didn't include any of the illustrations.
