Red Herrings

One of the most renown person for making good red herrings is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) a Scottish author most known for the stories of Sherlock Holmes.

 Hound of the Baskervilles is a classic example of a red herring. The readers are thrown off the real murderer and begin to suspect the escaped 'convict' and 'Barrymore'. In the end, however, the mystery is resolved by an unexpected confession of Beryl, stating that her husband 'Stapleton' was the real culprit and was behind the whole mystery of the killer 'hound'.

Another famous red herring can be found the the novel the Final Problem. Dr Watson is called away from a walk through the mountains with Sherlock Holmes to help an English woman in their hotel in Switzerland. As the doctor races back to the hospital he finds that there is no English woman, and that the message was sent as a red herring by the notorious villain, Professor James Moriarty. Professor Moriarty sent the message to isolate Sherlock which leads to an event known as the Reichenbach Fall, where Dr. Watson returns to find evidence of a struggle between the two men leading over the edge of a cliff.