It is 1930. The British Government commissions Holmes and Watson to travel to Germany in the company of leading German interpreter, Paul-Otto Schmidt, to help the authorities find the man who shot Horst Wessel, the leader of the Storm Troopers.
Holmes soon identifies Wessel’s attacker and takes part in a politically charged interrogation of him attended by the Gauleiter of Berlin, Joseph Gӧbbels.
The story climaxes at Wessel’s funeral where Gӧbbels delivers an incendiary speech to a baying crowd while Holmes muses on what good men should do in a world where evil thrives.