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Sherlock Holmes: Book Nook

A slice of foggy Baker Street that slots right onto your bookshelf.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 10351 · 2025

Pieces1,359

Minifigs5

Year2025

Set number10351

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The verdict

This one is pure atmosphere, and the closed-up silhouette of Sherlock is the bit that got me.

It slides between real books on a shelf and opens into a little cavern of Victorian London, which is such a clever idea for a display piece. The build itself is mostly stacking bricks with no fireworks, and at $129.99 for a public-domain character it does ask a lot. But if you love Holmes or you have a soft spot for cozy little dioramas, you will be very happy with it.

Best for: Sherlock fans who want a display diorama, not an engineering challenge

The full review

What it is

A book nook is one of those trends that makes total sense the second you understand it. You clear a gap on your shelf, slide in a little scene, and suddenly there is a whole tiny world tucked between your paperbacks. This LEGO® set is the first proper book nook LEGO has made, and picking Sherlock Holmes for it is just right. Closed up, the front face shows a moody silhouette of the detective in his deerstalker. Open it out and you get a narrow slice of Victorian London, a cobbled alley, a Baker Street sign, warm windows, and the kind of detail that rewards a second look.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the building though. This is not a set that shows off. There are a few nice angled sections that pinch the alley into a narrow perspective when the nook closes, but most of the time you are stacking bricks, panels, and tall bricks the way sets did back in the early 2000s. If you live for engineering surprises, you will not find many here. The other thing that stings on a display piece is the stickers. The lamps are printed stickers instead of real lit-up elements, and one of the door panels is a sticker too, which feels half done on something meant to sit out on show. And then there is the price. At $129.99 for a character who is firmly in the public domain, plenty of builders feel it should have come in noticeably cheaper.

Who it's for

So who walks away glad they bought it? If you are a Sherlock person, or you just adore small atmospheric dioramas, this is an easy yes. The figure lineup alone is lovely, and the silhouette trick makes it a proper conversation starter on a shelf. If you build mainly for the challenge and the smart techniques, you will probably find this too gentle and a bit overpriced for what it does. Meet it as a cozy display object rather than a brain-teaser and it delivers exactly what it promises. Brickset owners have it sitting at a warm 4.4 out of 5, and I land close to that, just with the sticker and price notes pulling me down a touch.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build moves in comfortable, unhurried sections. You lay the base and the hinged mechanism that lets the whole thing fold shut into that silhouette, then work up the two side facades of London brick by brick, then dress the interior. The angled walls that squeeze the alley into a forced-perspective vanishing point are the highlight, giving the scene more depth than its actual footprint suggests. Everything else is honest stacking: mixed panels, standard bricks, tall bricks, the classic vocabulary. It is relaxing rather than demanding, and the interior furniture and clutter are where the personality really comes through.

On the parts front the standouts are prints and recolors rather than new molds. You get lovely printed Baker and Street tiles in light bluish gray, and a Moriarty Disappears newspaper tile that nods straight at The Final Problem. There is a dark tan 1x1 brick with a stud on one side (its 37th color), a dark bluish gray version of the 18 degree slope, plus some genuinely handy bigger parts like the 1x4x6 smooth door last seen in Grimmauld Place and a dark orange 12x3 wedge plate. The deerstalker cap is a lightly tweaked mold with softer ear-flap corners. As a straight parts pack it is only okay, but factor in five exclusive figures and the 1,359-piece count and the value holds up fine.

Fun facts

01This is LEGO's first set built around the book-nook trend, designed to slot into a real bookshelf and disappear between actual books.
02When folded shut, the front of the set forms a silhouette of Sherlock in his deerstalker, and it opens out to reveal a forced-perspective Baker Street alley.
03The printed Moriarty Disappears newspaper tile references The Final Problem, the Arthur Conan Doyle story where Holmes and Moriarty plunge over the Reichenbach Falls.
04All five minifigures are exclusive to this set, and Irene Adler wears a new medium lavender dress with new prints made just for her.