Review Of ' The Hound Of Baskerville '

Sherlock Holmes novels are the face of mystery, featuring literature’s greatest detective, but one might ask, how does The Hound of the Baskervilles fit into the genre’s common conventions? Mystery being a sub genre of genre fiction novels, it has many common conventions found throughout the majority of the novels. In the average mystery, the plot focuses around a crime, commonly a murder or a robbery, in which the culprit must be found by the protagonist. The crime in Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles is that Sir Charles Baskerville has been murdered, or frightened to the point of death. Generally the protagonist who solves the mystery, has a dominant character flaw and/or defining characteristic which aids them in cracking

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is one of the most easily recognizable characters in detective stories. He has many remarkable traits that other fictional detectives do not. Some examples of this are his observational abilities, his dual personality, and his being a skilled musician and composer.

Solving a crime is difficult for detectives. Homicides are even harder cases to solve, the only person that can really tell what happened is dead. So many people are afraid to step up as witnesses, they fear their life would be in jeopardy for helping the detectives. For homicide detectives, the first forty-eight hours is the most critical part for solving a case. After that, the probability of solving the case reduces by fifty percent. Each passing hour gives suspects more time to get away, witnesses more time to forget what they saw, and crucial evidence more time to be lost forever. There are several steps to take in solving a homicide.

In Criminal Justice, there are many different detectives with many different qualities. So how do you know what it takes for a detective to be successful? What traits and qualities make a good detective? Today, two very popular detectives will be compared, Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew. These investigators are being “investigated” in one of their most popular novels, The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Both of these novels have very good sleuths, with many similar and contrasting qualities. Let’s follow the clues in these books to figure out the qualities of these good detectives and what qualities will take most detectives down the path of success.

Solutions must be made reasonable so the readers will not be baffled by the outcome. The solution needs to be reasonable so readers can come up with the same conclusion as the detective did with the information that was given throughout the story. Clues must also relate to the solution, so readers can connect the dots as to what happened.

One of the first steps in finding out whom the suspect is, is by obtaining and evaluating factual information. You must obtain as much information on the offense as you can.For instance, Harry Franks, a money-order collector, had just walked out of the Cute-Rate store in Fairmount where he was attacked by two guys. These two attackers had thrown acid in Mr. Franks face, beat him and then executed him with a gun. A third attacker pulled up to the side of the curb in a green car in which the other two attackers got into and all three attackers drove off. Information on the

Investigators can find clues from a murder through a number of different ways. Typically they find out how many times

When a crime has been reported, the responding officer and/or detective have to note the dispatch information such as address/location, time, date, type of call, parties involved. The officer(s)/detective(s) have to be observant when approaching, entering and exiting a crime scene such as look, listen and smell.

In 21st century London, a city filled with mystery, crime and deceits. The black streets are full with robbers, blackmailers, and serial killers. When the policy are desperate with the case, they called the famous detective, Sherlock, for help. A retired solider, John Watson, end up to live with Sherlock. Sherlock keeps human body part in the refrigerator, has an ambiguous addiction, and he uses his kitchen as a lab. After a while, John Watson gets norm to all the special behaviors and habits that Sherlock has, and became an assistant for Sherlock to solving the case.

Sherlock Holmes, as a private investigator, is not confined to the law when determining justice for the criminal. He in no way can be said to be closely tied to the police, as is evident in his irritation with them in certain investigations such as “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.” It is evident that Holmes believes he is mentally superior to the police force of London, priding himself on always being one step ahead of them. In “A Scandal in Bohemia” Holmes states to Watson that he and the police force “see, but… do not observe” (Doyle 146) while Holmes does observe, giving him the ability to solve seemingly insolvable cases. However, he does work with the police to help them close cases when need be.

     In "Visitors" it is the burglar that is most like Holmes, being “respectable'; and “professional'; and if you consider him to be the detective figure

Comparing the fictitious Sherlock Holmes to the mid-20th century retelling the famous Christie serial murders, there is a shift on how evidence is collected and impacts a criminal investigation. Sherlock Holmes, although not apart of commissioned law enforcement, is very generalized in investigation. His minute level of training in the criminal justice field, demonstrated that the best detectives are not found within any state institution in the 19th century. In the eyes of the reader, any citizen could be a detective with little training if you were smart enough. He not only examines background information, but collects evidence, interprets it, and takes justice into his own hands. With little help from Watson, Sherlock Holmes epitomizes the

The other great convention of the detective fiction was the introduction of the criminal who turn out to be a person who has already been introduced in the story. The criminal was an unexpected character who has not been mentioned in the episode, a taxi driver. However, he did appear in the episode when the victims called the taxi to reach their destination, but still we didn’t saw his face at that time. The other time when he got mentioned was when Sherlock contacted the murderer by Mr. Watson’s phone but mistaken him to be a passenger, not the cab driver. Besides this, the unexpected feature contributed to the suspense which made the movie more interesting and suspicious. The last convention of the detective fiction was that, how detective

Every mystery and caper that Sherlock Holmes solved he credited it to deduction or elementary logic. However McGrath notes that

While there has been criticism of the Holmesian method of deduction, many people support the idea that the use of deducing people can help with capture of criminals. While Holmes refers to his findings as deduction himself many people say, “that the process that Sherlock Holmes engages in is usually not deduction” (Novella). Deduction is defined as using a logic method of assumptions based on general statements about the world (Novella). However, Holmes himself makes more of an educated inference on what he observes about the suspects and evidence in his surroundings. The term “Holmesian Deduction” has been used to distinguish the two different methods (Novella). Holmes most famous quote, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”, is often cited as the best definition to his method of deduction. While it is not a method commonly used now thanks to more advances in crime fighting methods and technology, Holmesian deduction has certainly influenced that way we look at a crime scene.