THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO SHERLOCK HOLMES ...

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO SHERLOCK HOLMES by Michael Hardwick (St. Martin’s Press: $10.95, illustrated). Although virtually all of this information about the world’s favorite literary detective is available from other sources, it has rarely been presented so neatly and agreeably. The late Michael Hardwick was one of the world’s foremost experts on Sherlock Holmes, and he deftly managed to present just enough arcana to charm the curious Irregular without sinking into the kind of comma-counting trivia that pleases only hard-core geeks. This handy compendium includes a list of the monographs Holmes supposedly wrote (“Distinction Between the Ashes of Various Tobaccos,” “Typewriter and Its Relation to Crime,” etc. ); a compendium of unchronicled cases, including “The Giant Rat of Sumatra” (“a story for which the world is not yet prepared”) and a complete Who’s Who of minor and supporting characters. As Holmes himself observed in “The Man With the Twisted Lip,” “Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use, and a chronicler still more so.”