I have the entire collection of Holmes’s adventures penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. My favourites are all short stories on obscure cases where Holmes puts his science of deduction, (’...what remains, however improbable, has to be the truth’) to the best use. The novels (4 in all) however fail to impress. The Hound of... is a similar experience as the Sign of Four - intrigue, gruesome, dark, the same reference to a past incident and again, a demented animal. Conan Doyle, here attempts to give some credit to the abilities of Dr. Watson by putting him on the line, well, the trail of crime and shunting Holmes into the background. This is in a way to explain that Holmes is Holmes and Watson will always be Watson. The case goofs up and Holmes makes his trademark unexpected entry to wrap the case. This is not your average mental exercise of investigative abilities, but much an exercise to your reading abilities. The case is dark, mysterious, haunting, Gothic, eerie...your turn. The characters are as mysterious as the Hound in the moor. More like a late 60’s and early 70’s Bollywood mystery movie... a ghost, a mystery, the usual suspects, romance, drama, treason and a predictable grand finale and the re-justification of rationality over the occult. Like Bees Saal Baad and Gumnaam. You want an opinion? Stick to short stories. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never succeeded with novels.