Set in late January and early February of 1891, during the time that Professor Moriarty declares in The Final Problem that Holmes had "incommoded" his plans, Holmes and Watson are visited by two charwomen and retained to clear the name of a drunkard lighthouse keeper who has been arrested and charged with the murder of a German man in Tynemouth, England.

Amanda BA, colorfully dressed Bedouin brandishing a sword, interrupts Holmes and Watson at their breakfast table. He brings a cryptic warning: stay out of the affairs of his people, or face the consequences.

For all we know, or think we know, about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, what we don’t know is far, far greater. In the duo’s first case, A Study in Scarlet, we learn that Holmes and Watson met on January 1st, 1881, and subsequently moved into an apartment together at 221b Baker Street. Their first case officially began on March 4th of that year, and it is argued that “The Adventure of the Resident Patient” possibly took place in October of 1881, depending on which version of the story you read. But what happened during the rest of 1881? Or all of 1882?

1896. A new client at Baker Street claims he’s being threatened via the new art of the moving image. Eadweard Muybridge, pioneer of motion picture projection, believes his life is in danger. Twice he has been almost run down in the street by the same mysterious carriage, and moreover, disturbing alterations have been made to his lecture slides. These are closely guarded, yet just before each lecture an unknown hand has defaced images depicting Muybridge himself, which he has discovered, to his horror, only as he projects them to his audience.

In this book, Frank Emerson has uncovered a previously lost narrative by Dr. John H. Watson that illustrates how he and Sherlock Holmes, working in tandem with Detective Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline of Scotland Yard, conducted an intense 15 year investigation and pursuit that culminated with the unmasking, arrest, trial, and ultimate execution of the real Jack the Ripper.