The writer David Stuart Davies, who has died, aged 78, following a cancer diagnosis, was an internationally regarded expert on Sherlock Holmes. 

A teacher for twenty years, he later turned to writing full-time. His prolific output included novels, plays, short stories, and studies of the world’s foremost consulting detective.

He was also a magazine editor and a consultant for publishers Wordsworth on its reprints of classic mystery and supernatural books and Macmillan on series of Classic Horror stories and Yorkshire: A Literary Anthology. 

Born in Huddersfield in 1946, Davies failed his 11+, leaving school with no qualifications but later passed O and A levels at evening classes and went to Leeds University, obtaining an English degree.

He lived in Huddersfield in a house full of books, and taught English at the former Mirfield Free Grammar School. For three years he was a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at Huddersfield University.

He made his debut as an author in 1976 whilst still at university with Holmes of the Movies, a study of Sherlock Holmes on screen.

In the late 1970s he wrote comedy scripts for BBC Radio Leeds.

Many other books followed, including Bending the Willow, an acclaimed biography of the actor Jeremy Brett that benefited from Davies’ close association with one of the key players of Holmes on TV and on stage.

Davies’ knowledge and understanding of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation made him an ideal inheritor of the character, and he brought Holmes to new readers in a string of ten new novels from 1991 to 2022, the last being Revenge from the Grave for Titan Publishing.

His wartime private eye Johnny Hawke featured in six novels, and DI Paul Snow, his Huddersfield detective, appeared in a Yorkshire noir trilogy, beginning with Brothers in Blood, set in the homophobic world of the 1980s police force.

Davies’ short ghost stories were collected in an anthology entitled The Halloween Mask.

He also brought Sherlock Holmes to the stage in a trio of one-man plays including the award-winning Sherlock Holmes: The Last Act, starring Roger Llewellyn, which premiered at Salisbury Playhouse in 1999. It toured worldwide and was revived recently with actor Nigel Miles-Thomas.

Davies was editor of the crime fiction magazine Sherlock and for 20 years edited Red Herrings, the monthly magazine of the Crime Writers’ Association, of which he was also a member.

Davies was an affable, engaging, and hugely knowledgeable speaker who wore the mantle of “expert” lightly and inspired new generations of writers. He lectured on aspects of Holmes and Conan Doyle in libraries, at literary festivals from Edinburgh to New Delhi, within Sherlockian conventions, and even aboard the Queen Mary II.

He also gave regular TV and radio interviews and provided informed commentary for DVD and Blu-Ray releases of classic Holmes movies and TV series, most recently the 1968 BBC Sherlock Holmes series starring his idol – later his friend – Peter Cushing.

He was invested as a member of the Baker Street Irregulars in 1995 and in 2016 had the privilege of being initiated into The Detection Club, set up in 1930 by the likes of Dorothy L. Sayers and G K Chesterton as an exclusive club for crime writers. Past members included Agatha Christie.

Davies was married twice. In 2021 he celebrated his silver wedding anniversary with his wife Kathryn, who survives him.