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Sherlock Holmes's thrilling tales as a consulting detective in Victorian-era London have made him a veritable staple in the mystery and crime genre. His popularity has spawned a string of exhilarating games depicting his many adventures over the course of a decade.
With his sharp intellect and even sharper senses, Sherlock Holmes and his partner Dr Watson solve the most difficult murder cases that even stump Scotland Yard. From wading through the mosquito-infested swamps of the bayou to scouring the grimy streets of Whitechapel, no murder case can withstand the brilliance of Sherlock Holmes. These are some of the best and most intriguing, ranked.
Warning: Spoilers for the cases are included
9 Riddle On The Rails
The second case in Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments begins when a train Holmes and Watson were waiting for mysteriously disappears before their very eyes. Intrigued, Holmes and Watson discover that the train carriage held Chilean passengers.
What was once a mass missing persons' case turns into murder. The Chileans won a mining contract which the Mexicans desperately wanted. As an act of revenge, the Mexicans diverted the train and drowned it in a lake with the help of a corrupt stationmaster.
8 The Murder Of The Bishop Of Knightsbridge
The whole saga that began Holmes's final confrontation with Moriarty in 2012's The Testament of Sherlock Holmes was triggered by the brutal murder of the Bishop of Knightsbridge. This riveting murder case led Holmes and Watson down a maze of clues, all while the British press was accusing Holmes of being the culprit.
Holmes managed to prove his innocence once he unmasked Professor Moriarty as the Bishop's killer. It turns out Moriarty sent his goons to murder the Bishop in order to obtain an important document as well as to silence him. The Bishop would've told the world that Moriarty was planning to poison half of London's population and overthrow Queen Victoria.
7 The Kew Gardens Drama
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A robbery of precious plants at Kew Gardens leads Holmes and Watson down a rabbit hole of murder, deceit, suicide and blackmail. Although the death of Sir Montague Dunne seemed to be due to natural causes, Holmes was able to confirm that someone had triggered the poisonous plants to attack Dunne while he was examining them.
If you follow all the clues and make the right deductions, then you'll come to the right conclusion: Martyn Hamish and Miss White worked together to kill Dunne. The two took advantage of the ventilation system and their scientific knowledge to take down a man who was arguably no saint to those around him.
6 A Gilded Cage
One of the main cases in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, this case revolves around Theodore Gilden's murder. Although it seemed as if his pet elephant killed him in a fit of rage, some further detective work reveals that this is not the case.
With an elephant on the loose in the streets of Cordona, Sherlock and Jon (not Dr Watson, mind you) move to recapture it. They discover that the elephant had been provoked with a poisoned dart. Gilden's former colleague Arthur Swift did the deed in order to preserve his dig site, which Gilden wanted to build over.
5 A Study In Green
In 'A Study In Green', what was once an innocuous competition devolved into brutal murder. Holmes was due to collect his prize after winning a bowling competition, only for a Mayan enthusiast to be found dead and the statue of a Mayan king missing from its pedestal.
In a stunning twist, it turns out that the statue was an automaton and that a pygmy was controlling it. A man named Albeit - who was presumed dead - was planning to kill all his colleagues who were with him during a Mayan expedition. They had betrayed him and left him to die, causing the seed of vengeance to take root within him.
4 A Half Moon Walk
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Everything was going swell for Holmes and Watson until Holmes's underling Wiggins comes in saying his brother has been falsely accused of murder. Two former gangsters have been killed in Half Moon Street during the celebrations of Queen Victoria's Jubilee. What Holmes did not expect was for the murders to lead to something bigger.
The murders were committed by criminal Charles Foley, who framed Wiggins's brother, with the motive being about the theft of priceless Ancient Greek jewels.
Foley did not act alone, partnering with a revolutionary terrorist group the Merry Men. Holmes confronts them at the end of the game, but ultimately it is once again up to him whether to allow them to bomb the London Stock Exchange or to detain them.
3 The Whitechapel Murders
Jack the Ripper is one of the most sadistic serial killers of all time. It is up to Holmes and Watson to solve the murders of the Whitechapel sex workers and put a stop to his senseless killing spree.
Frogwares took a bit of creative license for these notorious murders, with Holmes revealing that the murderer was a Jewish butcher. The latter took out his rage on the sex workers, blaming them for causing his son to be born with syphilis, and physically disfiguring his victims the way his son had been. Clearly, a lot of self-denial and misplaced anger is going on here.
2 Sacrificial Lamb
Holmes is invited by Vogel to attend a hedonistic party in Manchios's mansion. But the guests were either too drugged up or drunk to notice that there was a dead body in the ritual chamber, stabbed with a ceremonial dagger.
The murder victim was Fabio, a former slave-turned-sex worker. Holmes is put on the case by Cordona's chief constable in return for information about his mother. The case is quite complex since all three suspects have a strong motive for killing Fabio. But that's the beauty of detective games since it allows you to make your own deductions and unmask the killer yourself.
1 Prey Tell
In the very first case in The Devil's Daughter, a little boy named Tom Hurst comes to Holmes's flat to ask for his help to find his missing father. Holmes digs deeper, which leads him to the home of the wealthy Lord Marsh. But Lord Marsh has been hiding a dark secret.
Behind his altruistic facade, the man had been tricking the London poor into thinking they were getting a job. Yet in reality, he and his hunting buddies were using them as prey.
Tom's father had actually been investigating Lord Marsh. He went off to hunt down Lord Marsh and his buddies in an act of vengeance, and it is up to Holmes to let him continue with his vigilante justice or put a stop to it.