The Hound of the Baskervilles

By Arthur Conan Doyle,

Book cover of The Hound of the Baskervilles

Book description

When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead, his face distorted with shock and horror, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are faced with a sinister and difficult puzzle. A fearsome creature stalks the wild and barren hills of Dartmoor. Is it a demon from the spirit world? Will it defeat their…

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Why read it?

4 authors picked The Hound of the Baskervilles as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Bit of a cheat, but this is my favorite book, which I re-read every year or so. That being the case, it has to count in my top three books I’ve read this year.

No introduction is needed, but I’ll give it one for those under a rock.

Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate the curious case of a Devonshire baronet, dead of a heart attack on the moors. Curious thanks to legends of a monstrous spectral hound which stalks the moors.

Holmes is far too busy, so he dispatches Watson to accompany the new baronet to his ancestral home,…

I love the supernatural element to this much-loved murder mystery.

This mystery pushes against the constraints of Knox’s Ten Commandments for detective fiction by involving the supernatural, but the Commandments are never wholly transgressed. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle drew on the folklore of Devon where the book is set.

He drew on the legend of the cursed squire of Buckfastleigh and a hellhound, a variant of the local Yeth hound, a spectral black dog. The folklore infuses the mystery with a ghostly and altogether wonderful hinterland. Dartmoor becomes a liminal space where the living and the dead are mingled. Conan…

From Hugh's list on puzzling murder mysteries.

No list of Victorian mysteries would be complete without a tip of the deerstalker to Doyle and the most famous character in fiction, consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. 

The Hound, a novel rather than a short story as are so many of the other Holmes stories, is especially atmospheric, drawing on the legends and the dark and brooding ambiance of Dartmoor as well as tales of the supernatural. It makes for some spine-tingling moments and a chance for Holmes to show off his finely honed powers of deduction. 

What, you don’t have time to read it? As fun as it is,…

From Anastasia's list on dark and stormy Victorian vibes.

Book cover of The Spanish Diplomat's Secret

Nev March Author Of The Spanish Diplomat's Secret

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author History lover Scriptwriter Reader Nature lover

Nev's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

An entertaining mystery on a 1894 trans-Atlantic steamship with an varied array of suspects, and a detective who must solve his case in six days to prevent international conflict.

Retired from the British Indian army, Captain Jim is taking his wife Diana to Liverpool from New York, when their pleasant cruise turns deadly. Just hours after meeting him, a foreign diplomat is brutally murdered onboard their ship. Captain Jim must find the killer before they dock in six days, or there could be war! Aboard the beleaguered luxury liner are a thousand suspects, but no witnesses to the locked-cabin crime.

Fortunately, his wife Diana knows her way around first-class accommodations and Gilded Age society. But something has been troubling her, too, something she won’t tell him. Together, using tricks gleaned from their favorite fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Jim, and Diana must learn why one man’s life came to a murderous end.

By Nev March,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Spanish Diplomat's Secret as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Spanish Diplomat's Secret, award-winning author Nev March explores the vivid nineteenth-century world of the transatlantic voyage, one passenger’s secret at a time.

Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife Lady Diana Framji are embarking to England in the summer of 1894. Jim is hopeful the cruise will help Diana open up to him. Something is troubling her, and Jim is concerned.

On their first evening, Jim meets an intriguing Spaniard, a fellow soldier with whom he finds an instant kinship. But within twenty-four hours, Don Juan Nepomuceno is murdered, his body discovered shortly after he asks rather urgently to…


I first read this as a young teenager hooked on Sherlock Holmes by my Latin master. The book is filled with tension and I could visualise the wilds of Dartmoor (having visited on holiday many times). I imagined being alone on one of those tiny roads that cross the moor and hearing the howl of a large dog getting nearer and nearer. Real enough that you want to hide under the bedclothes. I love a clean read: no swearing, no sex, very little blood and gore. This book ticks all the boxes, and despite its age, for anyone who likes…

From C.E.'s list on having your heart racing.

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