The sign of fear

Autumn, 1917. London is not the city that Dr John Watson and Sherlock Holmes once bestrode like giants.

Terror has come from the sky and Londoners are scurrying underground in fear.

Then a twin tragedy strikes Watson. An old friend, Staff Nurse Jennings, is on a boat-ambulance torpedoed in the Channel with no survivors. And his concert-going companion, Sir Gilbert Hardy, is kidnapped.

Then comes the gruesome ransom demand, for Sir Gilbert and four others, which will involve terrible mutilation unless the demands are met.

This cunning and horrifying tale will provide a stiff challenge for the good doctor's incomparable investigative skills.