Conan Doyle not only created the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, beloved sleuths of generations of mystery fans, but also enjoyed lending his aid to real criminal investigations. The author begins by presenting information on Doyle's life. Apparently the real man possessed some attributes of both detective team members, but his own success as a sleuth was not as great as that of his creations. The author devotes uneven attention to each crime which interested Doyle. I don't know if that is because Doyle spent different amounts of effort on the cases or because Costello's interested varied. The wide disparity in chapter lengths made it less readable. Perhaps the author should combine similar shorter cases into a single chapter? A bibliography for each chapter appears in the back of the book, but the author's not tying specific pieces to precise sources make it less valuable for academics although it still remains useful. ( )

Neither compelling nor dull, this is a well written and exhaustively (the ~12-15% at the end of the book is composed of references) researched account of the actual crimes and mysteries that either interested or involved the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Gives interesting views of criminal justices, in the UK, US and South Africa. ( )

The subtitle of this book is misleading. Arthur Conan Doyle was not a real-life Sherlock Holmes. His fame as the creator of brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes led people to write to him about missing persons and other personal tragedies, and others to ask him for his opinion on headline crimes. In most cases, he didn’t investigate in the way that his character, Holmes, would investigate. He offered opinions. Sometimes his opinion was correct and sometimes it wasn’t. In some cases, it’s unknown whether he was right or not because the crime is still unsolved. The book seems randomly organized because the crimes are presented as Doyle became interested in them in his lifetime rather than in chronological order. The author does succeed in documenting Doyle’s lifelong interest in vindicating the wrongly accused, and it might be of use to readers or researchers with an interest in this topic. ( )