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In a momentous period of British history, Donald Thomas' latest Sherlock Holmes adventure pits the great detective and his faithful biographer, Dr. John Watson, against an international conspiracy led by a disgraced English officer. Colonel Hunter Moran bears upon him the Mark of the Beast; his satanic ingenuity leaves a spectacular trail of devastation. It runs from the annihilation of a British armored column by Zulu tribesmen-armed only with shields and spears-to a life-and-death struggle on the sinking passenger steamer Comtesse de Flandre.

The heir to the French empire lies dead in the African dust. Europe is brought to the brink of war by forged dispatches, designed to enrich gun-runners and assassins. The gold fields and diamond mines of South Africa become the playground of organized crime. Only the detective genius of Holmes can prove a match for the unfolding criminality of Moran and his associates. With Watson and Mycroft at his side, Sherlock Holmes again demonstrates that although the powers of the state and the underworld may try to overpower him, they will never out-think his splendid analytical mind at the height of its powers.

Donald Thomas is the author of more than twenty books, including The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and the Voice from the Crypt, The Execution of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil, and Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly. He lives in England.

John Telfer, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, is an actor best known for playing the character of Willy Pettit in five seasons of Bergerac. He has appeared many times in various television dramas, while his parallel theatrical career has involved him in leading roles at the Bristol Old Vic, the Royal National Theatre, the Old Vic in London, and many regional theaters. He has made hundreds of radio broadcasts, and he plays the part of Alan, the vicar, in The Archers.