His career has been a long one,"" Arthur Conan Doyle notes of his immortal creation, Sherlock Holmes. Doyle made his observation in the 1920s, when the detective had already been thrilling readers for 40 years, and he modestly attributed his hero's success to ""the patience and loyalty of the British public."" Nearly a century later, the fictional sleuth continues to captivate imaginations around the world and to inspire modern-day reinterpretations. By the twentieth century Doyle had moved on to other literary endeavors but the public demand for further adventures of the Baker Street sleuth proved irresistible. The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes is the last such work to be regarded as canon, a collection of stories written before other writers claimed the character and his associates as their own. Here are a dozen tales of passion, revenge, greed, and murder-the final adventures of the great detective, as recounted by the master storyteller himself.
