Holmes hunts Dracula.

Reported by Dr John Watson, Imperial follows on from the events of Lifeblood. The team is drawn to Chislehurst, the historic south-east London town once the abode of Napoleon III, where a young boy’s mangled remains have been discovered and the community is gripped by terror.

Desperate for answers, Inspector Hopkins turns to Sherlock Holmes. As Holmes delves into the case he uncovers a labyrinthine underground web of secrets, lies and dark desires beneath the seemingly idyllic town, with connections to Chislehurst’s haunted past and to the resurfacing of his nemesis, Count Dracula.

The Count, ever in the shadows, holds secrets that intertwine with the murder. The conflict between Holmes and Dracula reignites, fuelled by their contrasting methods and clashing worldviews: Holmes guided by reason and logic, the immortal vampire bringing an otherworldly presence and a thirst for power. As the fog thickens, the two navigate a web of suspects, each harbouring sinister motives, in a battle of wits and wills that will shape the destiny of Chislehurst and their own intertwined fates.

Following on from Lifeblood and Imperial, The Great War is set against a Europe on the brink of war. In the foggy streets of Budapest a sinister presence lurks, threatening not just the city but the continent. When a series of gruesome murders rocks the city, the victims drained of blood and the clues pointing to an ancient evil rising once more, Holmes finds himself entangled in a web of dark secrets. Dr John Watson narrates their descent into the mystery.

Count Dracula has resurfaced with a terrifying scheme: to unleash an army of the undead and ignite a war that will engulf nations, creating a new world order with himself as its supreme ruler. As Holmes uncovers the plot, he realises the fate of humanity rests in his hands.

Real historical events and figures are woven through the story, from the dark alleys of London to the haunted castles of Eastern Europe, as Holmes’s razor-sharp mind clashes with Dracula’s centuries-old cunning in a race against time to thwart an apocalyptic vision.

August 1914. The lamps have gone out across Europe, and something older than the war is stirring in the dark beneath it.

Sherlock Holmes has barely stepped out of two years undercover as the Irish-American spy Altamont when a new summons arrives, this time from his brother Mycroft, and far more dangerous than anything Germany could throw at him. A Serbian courier known only as Malobabić is smuggling something through the graveyards of Central Europe, weeks after the assassination that lit the fuse of the Great War. Officially, it’s counter-intelligence. Holmes suspects otherwise.

Half a continent away, the newly recalled Captain Quincey Harker, a name that carries its own dark history, is pulled from the chaos of the retreat at Mons and sent behind enemy lines under a false identity, back toward a city he hoped never to see again.

Neither man knows the other has been called. Neither knows their investigations are drawing from the very same file.

As armies collide across Belgium and France, Holmes and Watson race toward Vienna disguised as neutral Americans, while Harker moves alone deeper into Austria-Hungary to find an old ally, and confront an enemy who should never have risen again. Somewhere in the confusion of the war’s opening weeks, a conspiracy far older than the Black Hand is using humanity’s bloodiest hour as cover for a harvest all its own.

Some evils don’t end with an armistice.