It was an incredible year, the start of a new century. Queen Victoria was still on the throne, the Paris Exposition was the talk of Europe and Count Zeppelin was conquering the air. The Tsar had completed the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Boxer Rebellion surged through China, in South Africa the Boers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State defied the British Empire, and at home Sherlock Holmes was at the peak of his powers. It was not a case of when the great detective's powers were needed but where. Mycroft sends for both his brother Sherlock and Dr Watson to help solve the mystery of lost secret plans and of missing gold in the fight that will become the Second Boer War. Watson accompanies his friend Dr Arthur Conan Doyle and Langman's Hospital to the battlefields of the Boer Republics as Holmes tries to stop the leak of information and recover a king's ransom. The biggest question is who to trust in a land ravaged by war and with countless conflicting loyalties. Will Holmes and Watson stop the leak before Lord Roberts tries to take Pretoria?