Sherlock Holmes

Have been reading the book 'Sherlock Holmes complete collection'. A good book, needless to say, but one aspect of the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that I liked the most is the way the evidences of the crime are presented. All facts / data are in front of the reader, most of the times, and the only (huh?) thing that is to be done is connecting them in a logical way, which ofcourse is what Holmes excels at. Some other detective books that I have read or TV shows that I watched are in sharp contrast to this. In all those books the detective does some work in background and finally when the criminal is nailed he (havent come across a detective story with a female lead, except for X files, may be. Wonder why is it always a male?) shows off the extra evidence that only he is aware of and comes out as an extra smart guy. Agreed, he did better than the law enforcement agencies in unearthing some additional clues but that does not make him better than ME, does it? because I haven't seen 'all' the evidence. Generally, while reading such books I tend to compare myself with the lead and I can appreciate the intelligence of the detective only when he can deduce things that I fail to, when both of us are given the 'same' set of facts. In case of Sherlock Holmes, Ofcourse I have not been able to link the clues as well as he does, inspite of having all data, but I am better than Dr.Watson atleast :). So, if you want to admire the deductive powers of Holmes get a book from Strand (350 rupees for a hard bound complete collection book..and no, Strand is not paying me any commission). Till the time you buy the hard copy you can consider these online versions

good collection with illustrations

easy to read HTML version

Also take a look at the interesting facts about Holmes at wikipedia

I want to read some 'original' detective stories written in kannada, so please leave a comment if you know of some such books.