Reminds me of this excerpt from "A Study in Scarlet".
'Have you read Gaboriau's works?' I asked. 'Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?'
Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. Lecoq was a miserable bungler,' he said, in an angry voice; 'he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid.'
'Have you read Gaboriau's works?' I asked. 'Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?'
Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. Lecoq was a miserable bungler,' he said, in an angry voice; 'he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid.'