This book introduces Dr Watson and the legendary Sherlock Holmes. The later is of course an awkward man subject to great swings in mood that make him a difficult person to share accommodation with.
But Watson enters into the flat in Baker Street with a sense that if nothing else he might encounter adventure. That adventure doesn’t take too long to arrive with Holmes, who seems to spend his time focusing on the minutiae of different types of tobacco and dust inviting Watson to join him as he gets called by the police to help with a murder.
The methods of detection used by Holmes are so different from the police that he is almost seen as an eccentric figure of fun. Yet in his flashes of brilliance he reduces the police to idiotic mannequins. A room in a deserted house with a man lying dead on the floor is just the sort of puzzle that Holmes likes to sort out…
