In the format of ‘The Complete Sherlock Holmes Series’, this set of books comes in as the last installation. By now, the Holmes/ Watson relationship is firmly established. You get glimpses of Holmes handing over the reigns and becoming more trusting of Watson’s capabilities.
The stories are set over a number of years, in some cases there is alluded to a separation period of them both not seeing each other for a very long time.
Even by this stage, it was very nice to see Arthur Conan Doyle coming up with new and different storylines including revenge, addiction and suicide.