The Adventure of the Red-Headed League

The Adventure of the Red-Headed League is a short detective story by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in 1891, and part of the Sherlock Holmes canon. It is one of the better-known Holmes cases, built around an odd-looking request, a strange condition for joining something that seems real, and details that only start to make sense once Holmes begins sorting through them. The story also appears in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

It suits readers who like classic detective fiction, careful clue building, and the contrast between what looks trivial and what actually matters. If you want a short story you can finish in one sitting, with a clear puzzle, a London setting, and Holmes working mostly through observation and deduction, this is a good fit. It connects directly to the Sherlock Holmes stories, especially the kind of case where small details carry the whole solution.