Becoming Sherlock Books in Order

Becoming Sherlock is a modern reimagining of Holmes and Watson, told as an episodic mystery thriller. Instead of foggy Victorian streets, it places the story in a near-future London, decades ahead of our own, where the city has changed and the rules feel harsher.

The series was created as an audio-first story and co-written with Sarah J. Naughton, so it has the feel of a fast TV season. Scenes are tight, episodes end with a hook, and you’re always being pulled toward the next reveal. It still reads well on the page, but you can tell it’s built for momentum.

This London is a character in its own right, loud, controlled, and full of corners where people can be lost.

The Watson here is a doctor again, living a fairly ordinary life until a chance encounter pulls him into something bigger. He meets a young man who will become Sherlock Holmes, brilliant, difficult, and not yet the finished legend. Their partnership starts out uneasy, built on need as much as trust, and the series is as interested in how they learn to work together as it is in any single case.

It’s a “how did we get here” story.

The episodes are designed to be read or listened to in order, because the relationship and the larger threats develop across the season. Individual installments, like The Red Circle / Kızıl Çember and The Irregulars, bring a new mystery to the surface while also feeding the bigger arc. You get investigation, deductions, and momentum, but you also get the sense that someone is watching the pair and testing what they can do.

Even in a new setting, the familiar pleasures are there. Watson tries to keep up, Sherlock sees patterns nobody else sees, and the cases turn on tiny observations that suddenly matter. The future backdrop adds its own tension, a city with new kinds of surveillance, new pressures, and new reasons for people to disappear.

If you’re coming from classic Holmes, the fun is spotting what stays the same and what gets rebuilt. If you’re new to the characters, you can just treat it as a fast-moving mystery series with a strong duo at the center. Start with the first episode and keep going in order, because the point is watching Sherlock become Sherlock. It’s best enjoyed in a straight run.