A great reference for those interested in Sherlock Holmes, Victorian England, and Edwardian England. Rennison's writing style was wonderful. I enjoyed how he was able to meld fiction and fact into a very descriptive and interesting narrative.

A decidedly useful reference for the Great Game, Rennison's faux biography of Holmes fills in many of the blanks with plausible and compelling "evidence" of Holmes's unrecorded life and interactions. Perhaps the only black mark against it is how dogmatic Rennison is to some of his own interpretations, bringing up traditional theories or hypotheses about Holmes only to shoot them down as improbable.

This was a weird book. At first, mixing the imaginary with the reality irked me a bit but then I began to enjoy it. It made sense that Sherlock Holmes was engaged in many more famous cases than the ones described and published by "Watson". I particularly liked the theoretizing concerning what he was up to during the three years following his "death" at Reichenbach falls. It was really interesting also from the perspective of how the Great Game was played and how some exotic localles (Tibet, Persia, Sudan) looked at that time.

The downside of having Holmes take on famously *unsolved* cases like Jack the Ripper mysteries or IRA terrorist attacks, makes him seem far more fallible than presented in Watson's stories.

Reading this book made me check various things in the internet, to see if they were real, I particularly enjoyed learning that "Holmes" advertised laxative pills.

I finished it. It wasn't bad but I do not recommend it for anyone who has not read all Sherlock Holmes books/stories. Written from the premise that Holmes and Watson were real and the stories of Doyle were based on real crimes and mysteries from 1880 to 1920 as related to Doyle via Watson with Holmes' approval. There is the tie to British governemnt inovlvement in some matters and that Holmes elusive brother played a part. Immense detail that can overwhelm the story.

It just amazes me that books like this can get published. What was the point of this book? It's not exactly fiction and it's not exactly a take-off of William S. Baring-Gould. It's not funny and it's not inspired and it adds nothing to the Sherlock Holmes universe. If Sherlock Holmes was real and had relations were still alive, they should sue.



The Sherlock Holmes described in this book is not recognizable as the Holmes in the Canon. However, this book helped get me drowsy enough to go to sleep, so I suppose that's a virtue. Maybe. In a parallel universe.



It's still a good title though. Perhaps someday someone could write an Albert Goldman or a National Inquirer job, spicing up Sherlock's life in a parody to make him the Caligula of the detective world.



Or not.

Brilliant story! I had a lot of fun reading this.

This book really appealed to my loves of fiction, history and biography. I have read the Sherlock Holmes stories for many years, and although their plots and denouements are sometimes a little hard to swallow, I have always been fascinated by the characters of Holmes and Watson themselves. This “biography” is an extremely detailed blending of real history and fiction, something akin to the Indiana Jones stories with footnotes. I learned new facts of Victorian era history and gained a greater feel for the climate in England from the 1880's to the First World War. The facts and fiction are so perfectly intertwined that you end up thinking that maybe Holmes really DID exist. If nothing else, the book is an amazing reference that pulls all the details of the stories together and explains many of the historical allusions.

For an admirer of Sherlock Holmes, it is a beautiful book in which you can immerse and forget that he is just a character. At the moment I first read it I wasn't even sure it was not about a real person. Nick Rennison is amazingly well-documented and the book has the true ring of an authentic biography. It deals with many aspects of Holmes's life, such as his childhood, sexuality or social relationships, as well as the historical background. One of the books I keep close to my heart.

the research put into this book is incredible and with the background fabricated by rennison, you sometimes forget that sherlock holmes is a fictional character. this book really has very little to do with arthur conan doyle and much more to do with siphoning holmes' character from all of his documented adventures and making him as well-rounded and tangible as he could be. this book even fills in the gap in the time between stories, including the two year gap between reichenbach falls to his re-emergence as a costumed opium addict, to attempt to present his life in "real time". at the point of reading this book, i had already finished about 3/4 of of the complete novels and short stories volume 1 and 2, but retain very little details from each story except for random episodes that stood out in my mind. far from being a holmes expert, i found the book slow and distracting at times when recanting details from documented and undocumented cases. however, they did provide a welcomed refresher. i would recommend this book to any sherlock holmes fan, it really does make reading his adventures richer and provides good fodder when quizzing the character actors at the sherlock holmes museum.

An interesting biography about the probably best known fictional character. It ties together facts and fiction nicely so that you think you are reading about a real person. The only thing that irked me a little was that every major character that touched Holmes's life gets at least a summoned up mini-biography in this book.

Great idea, poor execution. The author tries to be too cool.

So you decide you want to be an author, only perhaps you have a somewhat limited imagination and no original story to tell. What do you do? Use the creation and the mysteries of another author(the more successful the better, so use Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and use his most well known character, in this case Sherlock Holmes, and write a fictional biography of his life. Throw in some real people who were alive during the same time period Sherlock sleuthed and voila! You've got yourself a book! OK, I'm being harsh but I did not especially like this one, it was a tad dull even for a 'biography,' and the only thing original was making up a whole backstory for Sherlock and John Watson. It was ok but not great.