Armchair detective Armchair detective An armchair detective is a fictional investigator who does not personally visit a crime scene or interview witnesses; instead, he or she either reads the story of the crime in a newspaper or has it recounted by another person. As the armchair detective never sees any of the investigation, the reader can attempt to solve the mystery on the same terms as the detective. The phrase possibly originates in a Sherlock Holmes story from 1893, "The Greek Interpreter", in which Holmes says of his brother Mycroft, "If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from
Mycroft Holmes in "The Greek Interpreter", his blundering approach to the case nearly costs the client his life. Mycroft resembles Sherlock, but is described in "The Greek Interpreter" as being "a much larger and stouter man". In "The Bruce-Partington Plans", the following description is given: Mycroft spends most of his time at the Diogenes Club, which he co-founded. He is the only character to refer to Sherlock exclusively by his first name. Mycroft Holmes has been portrayed many times in film, television, and radio adaptations of the Holmes stories. The character has been used many times in works that are not adaptations