Damien March hasn't thought of his eccentric uncle, Patrick, for almost twenty years, so he is shocked to learn that he has inherited his ramshackle house on Ionia, an isolated island off the coast of Cape Cod. But his new future means moving circuitously into his family's past; rummaging through his uncle's possessions, he finds letters and writings that provide scattered clues to Patrick's solitary life. And when he discovers a fragment of an unpublished novel, The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes, which seems to hold a sinister meaning, the stakes in the chase become dramatically higher. Perceptively written with an engaging wit.