... is most likely that Leroux styled his hero after himself. Rouletabille was in the tradition of other great detectives who solved their cases by pure deductive reasoning. Much as Sherlock Holmes, who eliminated the impossible and concluded that whatever remained, however improbable must be the truth, Rouletabille included the known facts about the case and eliminated every...

...h Holmes displays as he teases apart the tangled clues. Packaged as twelve distinct cases, by the end of this book your own senses of observation and deductive reasoning should be improved. It's easy to see why this book became a model for detective yarns! (Summary by Mark F. Smith)...

...rs. In his first adventure, Holmes demonstrates many of the traits for which he later became well known: meticulous study of a crime scene, brilliant deductive reasoning, aptitude for chemistry and music, and the somewhat annoying habit of withholding crucial facts from Watson (and consequently the reader) until the conclusion of the case. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden)...