Fabulous … With all the brilliance of Sherlock himself … Sims is himself an ingenious investigator. Among his most intriguing explorations is his teasing out of not just Conan Doyle's personal history but the history of the detective story itself

New York Times

Stuffed with fascinating detail … The book is a brimfull of Holmesian arcana and minutiae

Sunday Times

A warm and affectionate look at how Arthur Conan Doyle introduced the Great Detective and the Good Doctor to the world! ... A carefully researched but thoroughly readable work that will surely appeal to the millions of Holmes's admirers as well as students of crime-writing

Leslie S. Klinger, editor of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes

A different take on Doylean biography ... The perfect author ... He uses his material in ways that – though many of the facts may be familiar – the reader comes away with a new way of considering both the detective and his creator

Baker Street Journal

A fascinating insight into Doyle's difficult early life when he was surrounded by poverty and violence

Choice

A fine book ... Even the most learned of Baker Street Irregulars will enjoy Sims' look at the making of Sherlock Holmes

Kirkus