Welcome

Welcome to A Study in Sherlock: The Holmes Re-Read, where we will re-examine the great detective’s adventures. My name is Stephen Lee. I investigated and prosecuted real-life crimes and mysteries as a federal prosecutor in Chicago for 11 years and now help corporations and people as a white-collar criminal defense attorney. I also have written and spoken about how to build more effective cases using data, such as in my article “How to Build A Smoking Gun.” I will use those experiences here to look back at the Sherlock Holmes stories, with the help of my 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter.

For each story, we are going to provide a synopsis of the story as told by Dr. Watson (and occasionally by Sherlock Holmes) and then a synopsis of the story from another perspective, usually the person whose conduct was under investigation. We’ll also discuss how the story provides advice for real-life investigations. Holmes said in one story that he planned “to devote my declining years to the composition of a text-book which shall focus the whole art of detection into one volume” – we’ll try to do that for him! We’ll also discuss how contradictions in the stories might be reconciled in something that I call the “Silent Contest,” which refers to how Holmes and Watson might have lied in some early stories for investigative reasons.

Hope you enjoy!