A brazen daylight robbery at Christie's becomes the talk of London, but Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are no longer in the business of solving crime. Holmes has retired to Sussex, to keep bees, and Watson, recently widowed, has returned to general practice. But when Watson, desperate for distraction, agrees to accompany his old friend to Vienna, to visit eminent neurologist, Sigmund Freud, it is not long before the pair are pulled back into the murky world of ruthless criminals bent on abduction, intimidation and murder. A shadowy terrorist group, The Black Hand, is plaguing the city, and when the tentacles of a crime committed in England reach across to Vienna to cil around Harry Houdini, the famous American escapologist, the Great Detective and his Boswell relish the chance of solving yet another puzzle.