All you ever wanted to know about Sherlock Holmes... A superb piece of detailed scholarship, clearly a labour of love for the author and, most importantly of all, is as readable as a good thriller'
Shots Magazine
If you love Sherlock Holmes, you'll love this book... The best account of Baker Street mania ever written... What Boström has accomplished supremely well is to relate, as his subtitle proclaims, 'the story of the men and women who created an icon.' In effect, he shows us how Sherlock Holmes enchanted the world'
- Michael Dirda, Washington Post,
A timely overview of the great detective's actual genesis and multiple transformation as a mass cultural icon... Riveting... Boström has expertly unearthed entertaining instances of the sleuth's diverse appearances in all media, throughout the world... [A] wonderfully entertaining history'
- Michael Saler, Wall Street Journal,
A comprehensive history of the iconic detective
Choice Magazine
A phenomenal achievement in Sherlockian scholarship. It is packed with detail, both the well known and the obscure, while still being eminently readable
Nudge Book
"Reads like fiction" is a cliché that's hard to avoid in describing this engrossing narrative full of quirky characters and twists and turns of plot. The 497 pages of text, followed by 100 pages of notes and index, fly by
The Sherlock Holmes Journal
Boström's richly detailed, yet lively work is essential reading for all true Holmesians
Guardian
A fascinating account of an astonishing literary phenomenon
Historical Novel Society
Everybody knows about Sherlock Holmes, the unique literary character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who has remained popular over the decades and is more appreciated than ever today. But what made this fictional character, dreamed up by a small-town English doctor back in the 1880s, into such a great success? This is the fascinating and exciting tale of the man and people who created the Holmes legend.
The book was winner of the Best Non-fiction Award by The Swedish Crime Writers' Academy 2013 and shortlisted for The Great Non-Fiction Book Prize (Sweden's biggest non-fiction award) in Sweden 2013.