Let me begin by saying that I am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes. I started reading the stories by Conan Doyle in elementary school (no pun intended). Jeremy Brett's portrayal… iconic! Robert Downey, Jr… broadened my appreciation of the character. Benedict Cumberbatch… be still my beating heart. Jonny Lee Miller… let's go back to iconic. All of these enactments have done one thing; they have perpetuated the myth that is Sherlock Holmes, the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Writers write what they know. Yes, they extrapolate and exaggerate, but the essence of great stories is the truth of personal experience upon which they are built. Conan Doyle was no different.

The early 20th century was still heavily under the influence of the Victorian Era which was both a time of progress and industry alongside extreme poverty and class consciousness. This was a time of nationalism that singled out anyone who was 'other.' In CONAN DOYLE FOR THE DEFENSE, the term "convenient other" is prominent. If someone fit into that category, they were liable for whatever wrong the police might decide they committed. A "convenient other" was no more than a scapegoat, something with which we are all too familiar today.

This is as much a biography of Conan Doyle as it is an exposé of system that put an innocent man within steps of the gallows. As you may, or may not know, Conan Doyle trained and worked as a physician. His professor and mentor, Dr. Joseph Bell, taught him the value of keen, and minute observation, the one quality so admired in Sherlock Holmes. Thus Conan Doyle's medical training aided him in the creation of the great detective, and, by extrapolation, made him a keen investigator in his own right. Remember, the best stories come from what you know. From there, a little imagination allows knowledge to bloom into story.

This is a book for those who read true crime, or that read history, or who, like me, have been captivated by the myth that is Sherlock Holmes. To say that I enjoyed this book is surely not enough. I felt immersed in a bit of history and found new insight into the mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The dramatic title and the true crime billing do this book somewhat of an injustice. Margalit Fox isn't writing in the traditional true crime genre, not being particularly interested in solving the 1908 murder of the elderly Scottish spinster Marion Gilchrist. (Indeed, while a brutal crime, Gilchrist's murder is perhaps just as horrifying in its banality—were it not for Arthur Conan Doyle's later involvement, her name would long since be forgotten.)

Fox is far more interested in exploring what the subsequent trial of Gilchrist's alleged killer tells us about Edwardian Britain, which Fox presents as a transitional period between "the twilight of nineteenth-century gentility and the upheavals of twentieth-century modernity." Oscar Slater was convicted of Gilchrist's murder and sentenced to death (later commuted to life and hard labour) although it was patently obvious that Slater was innocent, the charges against him trumped up because he was a foreigner and a Jew. It would take 20 years and the intervention of Arthur Conan Doyle—best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes—to secure Slater's release from prison.

Don't go into this expecting a page-turning procedural, but as an exploration of how prejudice leads to miscarriages of justice, Conan Doyle for the Defense is quite engaging.

I'll preface this by saying I haven't really read much of this genre before or non-fiction in general outside of academia. I found the central story interesting here, but it just felt padded by so much extra context. The main thread of the crime and Oscar's conviction and everything was interesting, but there was just so much written about that felt only tangentially related. Like maybe the author realized the premise didn't actually offer enough content for a whole book.
But if nothing else this provided some more fun facts for me to break out when relevant.