by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of twelve short stories by Scottish author Arthur Conan Doyle, is considered a milestone in the genre of detective fiction. With Sherlock Holmes’s clever disguises and ability to solve even the most elusive mysteries, as well as Holmes’s loyal friend and biographer, Dr. Watson, who narrates most of the stories, Doyle’s suspenseful stories and well-developed characters keep readers on the edges of their seats.

The nice thing about this short story collection is that each of the stories can be read in a sitting. Considering that most Sherlock novels can take a while to read, it’s fun to get short snippets of Holmes and Watson’s adventures.

Most of the stories follow similar formatting: a client arrives and recounts the details of the case to Holmes and Watson. Holmes then goes out and does some investigating. Then Watson joins him for the climax. The stories lend themselves more to “telling” than “showing,” but it works since they’re short stories, and that was one of the writing styles in the past.

I would recommend that readers first read a full novel about Sherlock Holmes, so as to get an understanding of the characters that will allow them to better understand and appreciate the short stories.

Cautions: several blasphemies; brief, non-graphic mentions of moderate/heavy violence; mentions of drug and opium use; one of the stories revolves around someone trying to recover a photo that would presumably reveal a scandal from his past *

*I didn’t keep exact track of cautions and may have missed some.