Inspiration for Sherlock Holmes found, writer says

LONDON, March 16 (UPI) -- A new biography of Jerome Caminada, a detective in Victorian England, suggests he was the model for fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

Angela Buckley's book "The Real Sherlock Holmes: the Hidden Story of Jerome Caminada," published this month, points out the similarities between Caminada's actual work as a police detective and freelance "consulting detective" and that of his fictional counterpart, the Daily Telegraph reported Sunday.

Throughout the series of short stories, Holmes had a mysterious woman in his life, Irene Adler, and a nemesis, James Moriarty. Buckley points to the real-life Alicia Ormonde, a well-educated woman with an aristocratic background who was also an expert forger wanted across England for fraud and theft, and Bob Horridge, a violent criminal with whom Caminada had a long feud.

Buckley, a historian and genealogist, also notes similarities in the methodology of Caminada and Holmes, using disguises, employing a network of informers and developing an encyclopedic knowledge of crime.

Caminada who published his memoirs after retirement, died in 1914, the year in which the last Sherlock Holmes story was set.