Richly evocative of the smog and smoke of Victorian Edinburgh, this account from the author of The Facemaker of a mercurial professor with astonishing deductive powers spotlights the real-life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.

Edinburgh, 1878. A medical student named Arthur Conan Doyle squeezes into the Royal Infirmary’s packed operating theatre, hoping to catch a glimpse of the celebrated professor whose uncanny powers of observation blur the line between diagnosis and detective work.

That professor was Joseph Bell, who became one of the most celebrated surgeons and medical reformers of his age. With a flair for the theatrical and an eye for clues hidden in the tiniest details, he astonished his students with lightning-fast deductions about his patients’ backgrounds and ailments. Together with Edinburgh’s chief police surgeon, Henry Duncan Littlejohn, Bell also investigated some of the highest-profile murders of the century, including those of Jack the Ripper, and collaborated with forensic specialists such as a ballistics expert named Dr. Watson. And as Conan Doyle’s mentor, Bell inspired the creation of literature’s most iconic sleuth: Sherlock Holmes.

Lindsey Fitzharris guides us through the smog-choked alleys and crowded slums of Victorian Edinburgh to tell the story of the birth of modern forensic science through the life of Joseph Bell.