I always liked Sherlock Holmes. I think I read somewhere that Doyle based the character on a doctor he once knew.

Doyle was a brilliant writer and Holmes one of the all-time great characters of fiction, but Doyle was a far better writer than he was a logician. Most commonly, the evidence in the stories is alluded to and not stated. And a lot of the "evidence" that is stated is nonsense.

Still, he's one of my favorite characters - particularly case 16 of the first book, The Case of the Greek Interpreter, in which we meet Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's smarter older brother.

I've made a point of reading many of the shorts, as well as the novella The Hound of the Baskervilles to my kids. They loved the stories, but hated the end of the first book where Sherlock gets killed.

I wonder where a name like Mycroft comes from.

k