Parade of Holmes

Parade of Holmes

Our picks for greatest adventures of the Great Detective that Arthur Conan Doyle didn't write.

Young Sherlock Holmes

Directed by Barry Levinson. Screenplay by Chris Columbus. Starring Nicholas Rowe, Sophie Ward, Alan Cox. (1985, 109 min.)
If you see this film when you're around the age I was when it debuted in theatres – 23 – it'll likely have a greater impact, due to easier identification with the main characters. But if you're a Holmes fan of any age, it's a good bet that you'll enjoy this clever fancy in which Holmes and Watson meet in their teens while attending a British boarding school – and together attempt to thwart a shadowy Egyptian cult that's systematically killing London business types. – W.A.B.

The Case of the Revo­lu­tionist's Daughter: Sherlock Holmes Meets Karl Marx

by Lewis S. Feuer Prometheus Books, 265 pp., $32.99
In this playfully irreverent novel, the science of deduction meets the ideology of Marxism, leaving both sides confused and the reader highly entertained. Friedrich Engels hires Sherlock Holmes to locate Karl Marx's errant daughter, who has run off with (gasp!) a capitalist. Holmes must navigate through London's socialist underworld to uncover the rebellious runaway's whereabouts. Along the way, he encounters George Bernard Shaw, the Fabian Society, Beatrix Potter, and various other Bohemians. – M.O.

Elementary

CBS, Thursdays, 9pm Central
Take a handful of supposed Holmes adaptation heresies – fast-forwarding to modern day, abandoning London, altering Watson's race and gender – put them in a blender with the American police procedural and what do you get? CBS' Elementary offers a relentlessly compassionate meditation on the nature of addiction, gorgeous performances by Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as a Holmes and Watson that deeply need, respect, and challenge each other, a thrillingly diverse cast, and inventive crimes to solve on the way. – Rosalind Faires