Book excerpt: THE GAME IS ON: the greatest adventures of the greatest detective of them all - Sherlock Holmes. The most famous of all fictional detectives in a selection of his most challenging cases, including the stories A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA and THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE and his most famous novel THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. 'Arthur Conan Doyle is unique in simultaneously bringing the curtain down on an era and raising one on another, ushering in a genre of writing that, while imitated and expanded, has never been surpassed.' Stephen Fry 'Why do people still read Sherlock Holmes in an age of DNA testing and electron microscopes? It's elementary. Holmes has a timeless intelligence that puts him head, shoulders and deer-stalker above all other detectives.' Alexander McCall Smith 'Now, as in his lifetime, cab drivers, statesmen, academics, and raggedy-arsed children sit spellbound at his feet... No wonder, then, if the pairing of Holmes and Watson has triggered more imitators than any other duo in literature.' John Le Carre