A thrilling chase as Sherlock Holmes is set a fiendish puzzle by Irene Adler over a snowy London Christmas, in this stunningly packaged mystery Sherlock Holmes's discovery of a mysterious musical score initiates a devious Christmas challenge set by Irene Adler, with clues that are all variations on the theme of "theft without theft", such as a statue missing from a museum found hidden in the room it was taken from. In the snowy London lead-up to Christmas, Holmes's preoccupation with the "Adler Variations" risks him neglecting the case of his new client, Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who has received a series of threats in the form of animal carcasses left on his doorstep. Could they really be gifts from a strange spirit that has pursued Nansen since the completion of his expedition to cross Greenland? And might this case somehow be related to Irene Adler's great game? "Fans of traditional Holmes stories should welcome a sequel." "Major has a special skill of weaving his characters' inner turmoil into the perils they face in the plot." "The only novel I have read that made my ears tingle.".