This book tells the story of the extraordinary link between actual murder and the greatest detective story writer of all time.

When Arthur Conan Doyle was a lonely seven-year-old schoolboy at pre-prep Newington Academy in Edinburgh, a French emigre named Eugene Chantrelle was engaged there to teach Modern Languages. Ten years later, Chantrelle would be hanged for the murder of six young girls, and two boys from the Academy - and medical student Doyle would provide forensic evidence at the trial concerning the dismembered bodies.

This extraordinary link between actual murder and the greatest detective story writer of all time is one of many. Christopher Sandford follows those links and draws out the connections between Conan Doyle's literary output and factual criminality, a pattern that will enthrall and surprise the legions of Sherlock fans. In a sense, Conan Doyle wanted to be Sherlock – to be a man who could bring order and justice to a terrible world.