[Watson & the Countess 07] • The Curse of Christmas

Book 7 in a series of chronological stand-alone plots:

London 1899. Rumours of resurrection-men strike fear into the hearts of Londoners, prompting Dr Watson and Countess Volodymyrovna to investigate the ghostly goings-on in the unconsecrated cemetery known as Crossbones.

In reality, Mycroft Holmes has recruited them to thwart an anonymous blackmailer - who has plans to embarrass the Prince of Wales by linking him to a scandal in a Southwark brothel.

It all seems straightforward until bodies start disappearing from their coffins, dead babies are found beneath fresh buried corpses, a ‘fetch’ is seen prowling the midnight lanes in search of its own image, and a suffragette ends up brutally gutted in the street.

Suspicion falls on the heir to the throne after his carriage is seen in the vicinity of the murder - recalling persistent rumours linking the late Duke of Clarence to the original Ripper atrocities.

Do they have another Burker on their hands, or a new royal Ripper? Who is the mysterious black velvet man, and what could Angelmaker mean? Are the souls of the outcast dead haunting this godforsaken graveyard? And will our two sleuths solve it all in time to spend Christmas in Sussex with Sherlock ‘Steampunk’ Holmes?

And more to the point, what will the great detective make of his illegitimate, aristocratic, fiercely intelligent daughter?