"Traced and Tracked; Or, Memoirs of a City Detective" by James M'Govan William Crawford Honeyman was a Scottish musician and author who often wrote under the name James M'Govan. In this book, he collects a series of mystery tales which include: A Pedestrian's Plot, Billy's Bite, The Murdered Tailor's Watch, The Street Porter's Son, A Bit Of Tobacco Pipe, The Broken Cairngorm, The Romance Of A Real Cremona, The Spider And The Spider-killer, The Spoilt Photograph, The Stolen Dowry, Mcsweeny And The Magic Jewels, Benjie Blunt's Clever Alibi, Jim Hutson's Knife, The Herring Scales, One Less To Eat, The Captain's Chronometer, The Torn Tartan Shawl, Lift On The Road, The Organ-grinder's Money-bag, The Berwick Burr, The Wrong Umbrella, A White Savage, The Broken Missionary, A Murderer's Mistake, A House-breaker's Wife, Mcsweeny And The Chimney-sweep, The Family Bible, Conscience Money, and A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing.

The figure of the detective has long excited the imagination of the wider public, and the English police detective has been a special focus of attention in both print and visual media. Yet, while much has been written in the last three decades about the history of uniformed policemen in England, no similar work has focused on police detectives. The Ascent of the Detective redresses this by exploring the diverse and often arcane world of English police detectives during the formative period of their profession, from 1842 until the First World War, with special emphasis on the famed detective branch established at Scotland Yard. The book starts by illuminating the detectives' socioeconomic background, how and why they became detectives, their working conditions, the differences between them and uniformed policemen, and their relations with the wider community. It then goes on to trace the factors that shaped their changing public image, from the embodiment of 'un-English' values to plebeian knights in armour, investigating the complex and symbiotic exchange between detectives and journalists, and analysing their image as it unfolded in the press, in literature, and in their own memoirs.

In English and American cultures, detective fiction has a long and illustrious history. Its origins can be traced back to major developments in Anglo-American law, like the concept of circumstantial evidence and the rise of lawyers as heroic figures. Edgar Allen Poe's writings further fueled this cultural phenomenon, with the use of enigmas and conundrums in his detective stories, as well as the hunt-and-chase action of early police detective novels. Poe was only one staple of the genre, with detective fiction contributing to a thriving literary market that later influenced Arthur Conan Doyle's work. This text examines the emergence of short detective fiction in the nineteenth century, as well as the appearance of detectives in Victorian novels. It explores how the genre has captivated readers for centuries, with the chapters providing a framework for a more complete understanding of nineteenth-century detective fiction.

This fascinating book is based on a remarkable discovery: Sherlock Holmes's methods of deduction were actually those of his creator and used in order to solve real crimes; for Scotland Yard Holmes really did exist in the form of Conan Doyle. Author Peter Costello draws on new research to follow the tracks Conan Doyle left as he entered the real word of Sherlock Holmes; his fictional outpourings were the direct result of their author's hidden career as an amateur detective and criminologist