When an overwhelmed young detective begins to hear voices in her head, she turns to the ghost of Sherlock Holmes to find a sniper, a killer, and a cybercriminal before someone else is killed.

SYNOPSIS:

First-year Detective Constable MARIA MARTIN (25) works in a quaint European town with a café, pub, bank, and police station. She is overwhelmed by her first murder case after her supervisor and mentor, Chief of Police CHARLES WINDSOR (65), is found dead at his country home. Luckily, Maria frequently hears voices in her head to help her, with the latest being the Ghost of SHERLOCK HOLMES (60), who died in 1913. Interpol sends Special Agent ART SIMMONS (30) to commandeer the case, which may relate to cybersecurity threats in the region. Maria and her loyal and comical sidekick, Police Constable HENRY GRUBER (23), are forced to stand down.

The primary suspect is seductive FRANCESCA DUBOIS-WINDSOR (30s), the Chief’s attractive and estranged French wife, who everyone sees as a gold-digger who screams whenever she’s touched. The town is filled with oddball characters. The autopsy by the town’s only doctor, DOC (45), finds what Maria and Sherlock’s voice keeps telling her: the Chief had a sniper’s bullet in the head, but he had died five weeks earlier.

Sherlock’s voice becomes a distraction as he is compelled to describe modern conveniences with which he is totally unfamiliar: smartphones, computers, sportscars, and e-scooters. Still, his detective skills are important in Maria’s secretive investigation. The town’s kindly, black British bartender/lawyer, TED (60s); the Indian Bank Manager, MS. GUPTA (40); and forgetful café owner, ROSIE (35), are constant distractions to Maria, Henry, and Art.

The list of suspects grows when the Chief’s house is ransacked, and a sniper’s bullet scrapes Maria’s helmet while riding her e-scooter and listening to Sherlock’s voice in her head. The theft of a black lace bra and the Chief’s diary offer clues to Maria, while deepfake videos of townspeople lead more Interpol Agents to town to solve cryptocurrency and payroll thefts from the poor. Doc’s son, LES (15), a computer geek becomes a person of interest.

The public reading of the Chief’s will at Rosie’s Café, surprises everyone. Maria is the major inheritor until Francesca unveils a video of Maria threatening the Chief the night he died. Art hauls Maria in for questioning and she unravels until she casts the voices out of her head. She is abandoned by Sherlock.

When Henry helps her escape in the morning, Maria is determined to solve the case. Henry, Art, and Sherlock indirectly assist, but she gets the town together at Rosie’s Café to solve all the cases. She demonstrates the videos are deepfakes and how Francesca, Rosie, and Les conspired to pin the crimes on Maria. Sherlock returns in the minds of Maria and Henry to applaud Maria’s spectacular detective skills in the new age. The case might have been solved without the ghost of Sherlock Holmes, but it wouldn’t have been as fun.

THE GHOST OF SHERLOCK HOLMES