Sherlock Holmes

-         a true crime fiction hero

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a Scottish physician and writer and he is most famous for his stories about the notorious detective Sherlock Holmes. In the crime fiction genre Doyle is one of the most famous authors because of the adventures Holmes is involved with. Next to crime fiction he also wrote science fictions stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry and non-fiction.

Sherlock Holmes is a detective in London and he first appeared in publication in 1887, featured in several short stories and novels. This arrogant yet confident character was famous for his ability to take almost any disguise and his use of forensic science skills to solve difficult cases were flawless. He has good help from his friend and chronicler, Dr. Watson, who is also the narrator of the stories. Often in crime fiction novels these stories are not told by the detective himself but by a close friend or co-worker.

Although Holmes is a messy character who you might question his work methods from time to time, he really does know what he is doing. He is not afraid of anything and he has knowledge to absolutely everything.

A good crime fiction story has a duality: the story of the crime and the story of the investigation. One cannot exist without the other and the stories about Sherlock Holmes are a perfect example of this. Towards the end of each story we as the reader receive an explanation of how the investigation was happening in order to understand the actual crime. The stories Holmes comes up with and the explanations are truly remarkable and you cannot help but to fall a little in love with this big-headed detective.

I read The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes a couple of weeks ago for my crime fiction class and I was pleasantly surprised over how good it was. It is well written and exciting and the stories are truly original. It is written quite a while ago but the language is fairly easy but cleverly written. This book was actually the reason why I chose crime fiction as one of my classes and I really liked it. Crime stories these days are of course slightly different but this is the ultimate crime detective that no one can beat.