‘Arthur and George’ by Julian Barnes; 501pp.

This is a good book. It tells the (true) story of Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji: Conan Doyle, famous as the author of Sherlock Holmes and considered at the time as man most revered, after Kipling, by the nation’s youth; George Edalji, a small-time Birmingham solicitor, son of a vicar and the author of a book on railway law.