Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-colored houses. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Anthony Horowitz had even referenced them in The Sentence is Death. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and a dozen other variations on stage and screen had paraded these over-and-over. They were utterly familiar in places, especially A Study in Scarlet: the iconic first meeting between Holmes and Watson, the dead body without a mark on it ”rache” painted on the wall beside the body the Baker Street irregulars. It was a strange experience listening to these. So what better than to slip back into the familiar territories and iconic characters – and the velveteen narration of Stephen Fry – of Sherlock Holmes.

That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.” But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I also noted that, of the books released around January, many seemed to veer towards the fantasy genre… and I have no objection to fantasy – much of my reading and therefore reviews celebrate fantasy writing – but just didn’t fancy it. The cold dark days of January, which this year were livened up by the joys of an two-day Ofsted inspection at work and four observations, cry out for reading time and little inspiring remained. I often find – as I mentioned in my previous post – a post-Christmas lull in my reading. How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? The Sign of Four, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A study in scarlet and the sign of four