Based on the best-selling works of celebrated Victorian and Edwardian writers, this highly popular anthology series features the world-famous consulting detective's fictional rivals - all of whom operate in the fog-shrouded crime capital of London. Set in the three decades before the Great War, the episodes present individual and perplexing cases featuring the exploits of detectives created by Conan-Doyle's contemporaries, from R. Austin Freeman's forensics pioneer Dr Thorndyke to Jacques Futrelle's "Thinking Machine", Professor Van Dusen, and Arthur Morrison's corrupt but outwardly respectable Horace Dorrington. This topflight, BAFTA-winning series attracted an incredible array of talent, including John Neville, Robert Stephens, Peter Vaughan, Roy Dotrice, Donald Pleasence, Ronald Hines, Peter Barkworth, Donald Sinden, John Thaw, Derek Jacobi, Joss Ackland, Jean Marsh, James Bolam and Richard Beckinsale.