For the very first time since I had met him, Mr. Sherlock Holmes let me down."

As a result, Dr. John H. Watson finds himself forced to accept, in 1883, a tricky challenge: to investigate the facts and fictions surrounding King Richard III.

Richard III: Monster? Murderer of his brother's young boys? Usurper? Or a legitimate but reluctant heir to the crown, and a good king who produced laws that are still in effect in Great Britain.

The game is afoot for the good doctor, from serene Magdalen College, Oxford, to the Bloody Tower at the notorious Tower of London.