Never have I felt so complete than when I was reading this set of 2 part collection, bringing together all the jewels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s writings about his famous sleuth, who is the epitome of excellent observations and deductions. Often I have wondered if such a person existed in the world, and if he did, what loads of astonishment he could create in this monotonous world.
These set of stories bring all the cases together starting from when Dr.Watson first moved in with Holmes to his early conclusion with Professor Moriarty and then a rebirth, including the Hound of Baskervilles, until the final conclusion of the series.
The author extracts a new skill of Holmes in every story – women psychology in the Scandal of Bohemia, cryptology and text analysis in the Case of the Dancing Men, makeup and disguise on countless occasions, etc. There are few skills that aren’t present in the stories.
Part 1 consists of the adventures, the memoirs and the return of Sherlock Holmes with the Study in Scarlet and the Sign of Four.
Part 2 starts off with the bone chilling Hound of Baskervilles and ends with the case book of Sherlock Holmes.
Personally, I feel that these books are great sources for people who would like to develop their analytical and deductive reasoning as it gives clues on how Holmes arrived at a certain conclusion. Putting these theories to practice would definitely help in decision making of the day-to-day problems of mankind. Of course, that is not to demean the intrinsic value of the methods of this sleuth, but it is give credence to the unusually complex society that we live in, with multitudes of rules and regulations.
I often consider the probability of survival of Holmes’ methods in today’s worlds. Would he have survived with his analytical and deductive reasoning? Are people as transparent as they were in the century that he lived? Most of the criminals today are aware of their act in cold blood and take every step to erase the marks that might lead to them. However, it is also worth to note that technological and biological advancements have brought even unimaginative detectives (the quality that Holmes thinks the local inspector lack in the Adventure of the Silver Blaze) are able to get somewhere without any toil. And often Holmes claims to know the n number of tobacco types or soil types in the area or locale. With so many people migrating and moving to all parts of the world, still facing an ever growing population and exchange of so many materials and natural resource, would Holmes have been able to keep track of what belongs to where and come to his conclusions as easily? Chemical analysis is possible today to gauge where samples originate from, yet they take some time to complete. And yet, for a seasoned detective as Holmes, this time of wait might be expensive. The argument may go on, yet the result might be inconclusive.
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