By the time Andrew Lane undertook the Young Sherlock Holmes series, he had already established himself as an author who specialized in expanding storylines that others had originated. Most notably, he wrote novels based on the Dr. Who and Torchwood universe and a series about the young James Bond. In tackling Sherlock Holmes, Lane insisted that his stories remain true to the facts that Conan Doyle presented in the canon rather than taking liberties for the sake of a good plot.

As Lane himself admits in the Afterword to Death Cloud, practically nothing is known about the great detective’s past. When he first appears in A Study in Scarlet, he is approximately 33 years old. Four novels and 56 short stories later, he will retire at the age of 60 to keep bees. His family history is sketchy. The reader only ever learns that he has a brother named Mycroft and that his mother was descended from a French painter named Vernet.

Lane plays with these sparse facts by planting Easter eggs in Death Cloud that refer to them. Mycroft appears early and functions as a surrogate father until the arrival of

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