In 1879 Edinburgh, a diva and her lover are found murdered in her lodgings. Soon after, Alan Lambert is convicted for the murders, but doubts about his guilt remain. Dr. Joseph Bell, a celebrated professor of anatomy, and his young student, Arthur Conan Doyle, work to vindicate Lambert and restore justice.
Benny Cooperman is about to hang up his gumshoes after an earlier brutal attack left him with serious memory problems. Then an old school friend shows up and begs Benny to find her missing husband, Jack Grange. His search takes him to Murinam in the Malay Peninsula, where he meets a bon-vivant priest, an attractive marine biologist, and an eccentric Englishman looking for kosher food, while the bodies pile up and Benny doggedly uncovers layer upon layer of deceit and intrigue.
One midsummer morning, crime novelist Howard Engel picked up his newspaper and discovered that he could no longer read it. While he slept, Engel had experienced a stroke and now suffered from a rare condition called alexia sine agraphia, meaning that he could write, but not read. As well, his memory failed him, he had trouble remembering where things went, apples and grapefruit looked the same, and names and places eluded him. Engel began learning to read again, and even wrote a Benny Cooperman mystery based on his own experiences.
