Tom Turley’s novella, “Sherlock Holmes and The Case of the Dying Emperor” (available on Kindle and destined to be part of a larger work entitled "Sherlock Holmes and the Crowned Heads of Europe"), neatly places the reader in the midst of a brief historical period towards the end of the nineteenth century—the ninety-nine-day reign of the German emperor Frederick III.

Turley’s recounting of Frederick’s final days is haunting. Beautifully written and historically accurate (as an overabundance of footnotes makes clear), we encounter a time in German history that gets very little attention. Not only was Frederick’s reign short, but the liberal intentions he espoused were eclipsed by the autocratic rule of his son, William II.

Turley introduces us to Frederick’s dilemma by having Her Majesty’s Government send Holmes and Watson to Berlin to assess conditions in the German court. It seems that reactionary forces within the German government consider the Emperor’s wife—in fact, the daughter of Queen Victoria—too British, too democratic, too interested in prompting her husband to cultivate a British-like constitutional monarchy in the newly created German state.

In particular, Holmes and Watson must evaluate the health of the emperor. Is his life-threatening laryngeal cancer accurately diagnosed, or are there evil forces at work trying to abort the establishment of a liberal state? With the “Iron Chancellor” Bismarck opposed to Frederick’s plans and conservative German doctors at odds with the British physician caring for Frederick, the court is rife with tension and subterfuge. In fact, though the death of Frederick is not unexpected, Turley leaves it to Holmes and Watson to raise the question of murder.

While Turley artfully wraps the early political struggles of the dying emperor within the guise of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, the true strength of the story lies in the sense of wonder Turley sets in motion. How different the world might have been had Frederick lived and successfully created an open society rather than the autocracy epitomized in the rule of his son. It was William II, after all, who involved Germany in the Great War, the same Kaiser who—as Turley’s Watson puts it—“led his empire to destruction and engulfed all Europe in its ruin.”

One can only ponder the fate of Europe if Holmes and Watson had been able to reverse the chain of events. What began with Frederick’s death and his son’s ascension to the throne culminated in the rise of Hitler, the Nazis, and the Third Reich. In the end, Turley’s masterful story telling leaves the reader greatly saddened.