Fifteen months ago, a bombardment by Mimetic forces against a frontline fleet left Captain John Watson, a military surgeon, wounded and nearly dead. Healed but judged unfit to return to duty, John is forced to resort to contracting out on a mining vessel as part of the accompanying medical personnel. It's boring work but it keeps him in space, one ambush away from adventure again with no real consideration to the terrors of war. Anything is better than boredom. Anything is better than a normal life. Anything-including homicide? When Sherlock Holmes is found to be the victim of a gruesome murder aboard the ship, John becomes the only likely suspect despite having no memory of the deed. Now he must face confinement, therapy, and the constant companionship of a hologram of his alleged victim to aid in his rehabilitation-a hologram who is only too happy to engage in the mystery of his own murder to try and discover why he died and how events set his path to cross with the war ravaged stranger he is now posthumously bound to.