Philip Gilbert, the head of a group of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts, is found dead in a national park's artillery battery.

Because the autopsy report is slow-coming, inspector Kate Martinelli and her partner Al Hawkin treat the death as a murder case.

One of his dinner group companions, Ian Nicholson, reveals that he had discovered a "lost" Holmes story, possibly by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, about the murder of a gay soldier in 1920s San Francisco.

Kate's interest is piqued when Ian mentions that Gilbert's body was discovered under the same circumstance as the soldier's in the story.

He did not realize at the time that Gilbert actually died of complications following the attack, thereby downgrading the legal status from homicide to manslaughter.