An interesting premise has Sherlock Holmes long-time partner in crime fighting Dr. John Watson delaying the publication of their last adventure for ten years until the great detective and an anonymous third party have passed away in the 1930's. The story tells how Holmes has become addicted to cocaine. Watson, along with Holme's corpulent brother Mycroft, deceived him into following the trail of his supposedly sinister arch mimesis Professor Moriarty. It turns out that the worst transgression Moriarty can be found guilty of was being the math teacher to a youthful Sherlock Holmes many decades earlier. Holmes informs Watson that Moriarty has fled London and the two pursue him all the way to Vienna assisted by Toby a mixed breed scent hound. The ruse was necessary to get the unwilling Holmes to seek a cure for his drug problem.
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Watson hopes that by introducing the detective to the renowned psychiatrist Sigmund Freud he may be able to beat Holmes addiction. Holmes powers of deductive reasoning astound the brilliant Freud. Once in the Doctor's care Holmes is hypnotized and the cure occurs with no small effort on the part of all three men. A distraught and hysterical woman comes to Freud's attention. She has managed to escape her captivity from a nearby warehouse and claims to be Nancy Slater from Providence, RI. She says she is the widow of the recently deceased Baron Von Leinsdorf. Holmes and Watson take her to the Baron's estate only to be told by a woman impersonating the Baroness that this woman is her lost maid three weeks missing. They remove Ms. Slater from the household before Holmes reveals to Watson the errors in the phony widows story. Later that evening when they recount their story to Freud the real Baroness disappears from their custody and the game is afoot.
The review of this Book prepared by David Fletcher
