“Elementary, my dear Watson!” We remember Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) as the creator of Sherlock Holmes and patriarch of a genre of fiction that, in the works of Ian Rankin, Henning Mankell and many others, thrives today. Doyle has already been the subject of four major biographies. What does this one add?

Comprehensiveness, for a start. Lycett has brought to his task the skills in inquiry that he developed as a journalist and improved in, for example, his fine biography of Rudyard Kipling. He has mastered a range of sources, including Doyle's bank statements. Some will find the result overdetailed, and Lycett's prose rather mannered. “Louise [Doyle's first wife] had gone up to town [London] to buy a new carpet.” A greater concern is that while Lycett gets inside Doyle's head, or tries to, he doesn't bring us his heart. But there are many compensations. Lycett excels at the troubled context of Doyle's times, caught first on the cusp and then on the charge of change.

Doyle's spiritualism looms large, as does his extraordinary range of interests and activities; be that keeping goal for Portsmouth Football Club or advocating a tunnel under the Channel. Above all, there is the sheer, indefatigable industry of the man. Lycett chronicles his many facets - and the consequent troubles afflicting his heirs. They all squabbled over Doyle's estate, and their heirs are still doing so today.

Conan Doyle: The Man who Created Sherlock Holmes by Andrew Lycett
Phoenix, £10.99 Buy the book here

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