There's always room for ice-cream; it melts into the tiniest of cracks. So can this unhistorical dream filter into gaps you perhaps did not recognize, or forgot.
This is the most effective first-person narrator I have seen, instigates immediate identification. If you were a too smart, lonely gawky bespectacled teen, crash cost parental love, you cry every night, the adult responsible for your care provides hunger, cold, curses, swats, rejection ... Fall into this book.
You had a happy California childhood before the accident. You come of age in the Great War amid maimed, missing men. You roam your Sussex farm away from neglect, trip over Sherlock Holmes. He fathers you; Mrs. Hudson mothers you; Watson, avuncular.
Holmes is retired, a beekeeper; you are his reviving apprentice. Each chapter is prefaced by a relevant bee care quote. The "queen" also refers to chess, and end strategy.
Why waste writing on Holmes' smoking, toxic poison habit? When pipes were popular, all my beloved uncles smoked them, although no longer. When I think of them, I unconsciously draw a deep breath. Sweet scents, strong in memory, soothe, comfort. Even remembered sharp sulfur tang of a sparked match evokes fireplace, bonfire, warmth, pleasant times. Clever.
Oxford uni brings fun and friends. Skills, especially disguise, gain in expertise. After a few years of training, increasing responsibility leads to full partner participation. Three cases escalate in danger to finally threaten lives of the detectives and their dearest. The local pub loses hams and cash. A senator's girl toddler vanish, ransom note has days to expiry (hers). Bombs explode in their rooms. Even Watson has to hide. His depiction here as a kindly bumbling dummmy is thankfully braver in films and TV shows (see my blog reviews).
Russell matures, suspense builds. Convoluted clues are offset by clear footprints. I did not like reading #11 in the series first. This debut is 5* - style, wit, ambience, mystery, action, in that order. There is a secret about the orphaning accident; you may guess, I did not.

Quotes:
"When active, strained vision only obscures and frustrates, looking away often permits the eye to see and interpret the shapes of what it sees. Thus does inattention allow the mind to register the still, small whisper of the daughter of the voice." p298
"That's what tears are for, you know, to wash away the fear and cool the hate." p141
"You cannot help being a female, and I should be something of a fool ... were I to discount your talents merely because of their housing ... a renowned bachelor such as myself, you probably would be more of an embarrassment were you a boy." p112