The danger in writing a review of anything Sherlock Holmes related -- book, movie, DVD, video game, board game, card game, con game, action figures, play sets, makeup kits, mobile phones, meerschaum pipes, drain snakes or home chemistry sets -- is the temptation to lapse into cliched references to the great detective. Fortunately, for a writer of my talents, succumbing to this temptation is elementary.

As I sat in our lonely flat at 221B Baker Street listening to our housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, noisily breaking the crockery downstairs, I contemplated the iPhone game which had lately arrived in our mail slot via the morning post. The title said The Lost Cases of 221B Baker Street and the illustration showed a too-familiar deerstalker hat and smoking pipe.

“I think I shall leave this one to your deductive powers,” Holmes said. “The clues are evident for anyone who cares to look for them.”

“By jove, Holmes, you’re right!” I exclaimed. For there, on the press release tucked neatly inside the mail was a list of the game’s feature.

As I examined the game itself, those features -- 20 wily suspects, 11 different motives, 20 unique weapons, and 10 locations -- made themselves evident. Also evident was the fact that the game had two distinct phases.

After a brief text-based introduction to the case -- a murder at the estate of a wealthy man -- the game becomes a straight-forward exercise in finding the hidden object. Players are shown a diagram of the estate with four rooms highlighted. Tapping on a room gives an illustration of the space and a list of three hidden objects. Finding and tapping on an object brings up a passable illustration of Holmes along with a comment about the role the object played (or did not play) in the murder.

The illustrations are of good quality, but finding objects can be difficult on the small screen of an iPod or iPhone. Those who are getting on in years and are hard-of-seeing may wish they had one of the newfangled iPads on which to play the game at double-size.

After all of the objects have been found, the game moves to the second phase, deduction. The four suspects, weapons and motives are laid out on the screen and the player is challenged to make the correct choice from each list. Those who paid attention to Holmes’ comments should have no trouble making the correct choices. Those who did not ... well, the game makers have thoughtfully provided an on-screen notebook which automatically records all of Holmes’ comments so solving the murder is a simple matter of referring to the book before making the final selections.

“It all seems very straight-forward, Holmes,” I said when I had finished my examination.

“Indeed Watson,” agreed my companion. “It is indeed. A simple game which provides little challenge to an intellect of any power, yet a pleasant enough diversion to while away the time on a long ride in a carriage or on the train.”

As always, I must agree with Holmes’ analysis. Although The Lost Cases of 221B Baker Street isn’t particularly difficult, at a price of $1.99 in the App Store it offers a reasonably-priced diversion with enough possible combinations of suspect, weapon and motive to keep the cases interesting.