In 1893, Alfred Monson is charged with killing a young lieutenant, Cecil Hambrough. In The Ardlamont Mystery, Daniel Smith re-examines the evidence of the case that gripped Victorian Britain.

Among the witnesses that the case brought together were two Edinburgh doctors, Joseph Bell and Henry Littlejohn. Bell, Conan Doyle’s tutor, had recently been unmasked as the inspiration behind the creation of Sherlock Holmes, but what the public did not know was that Bell and Littlejohn had actually been investigating crimes together for more than 20 years. Largely unacknowledged, Littlejohn deserves equal billing as the prototype of Baker Street’s most famous resident.