What's the difference between a consulting detective and a PI that might help the police?

Also, can't lie, if this is official, it's officially too twee.

I think what you are implying is true - no difference unless the CD did not bother to get a license in which case the CD may be violating the law.

But I think I know why Doyle used the term. Private Investigators were not only known, but the unblinking eye was used by the Pinkertons as their symbol - hence "Private Eye". The thing though is that the Pinkertons were not all that successful at tracking down criminals. The Jesse James gang ran circle around them and laughed at them. But they were very successful as thugs, beating up Union Members, even helping Spain against revolutionaries. So while they were romanticized they were also despised, seen as sleazy, especially by the liberal minded. Doyle was definitely liberal minded. So when Doyle invented Sherlock Holmes, had him describe himself as a consulting detective. Just to make it clear that he was not some thug you could hire to beat up people. Doyle pretended by implication that there was a difference in denotation (I don't even remember him mentioning the term Private Investigator, but he may have done.) But I don't think he could have supported that difference. You could have hired a Private Investigator in the 19th century to try doing what Holmes did, though I doubt they would have succeeded. But Doyle strongly intended a difference in connotation, and in that I think he succeeded. I don't think I need to elaborate on that.

I don't what "Consulting Detective" means today. It was the term Doyle used, so I suppose those bringing Holmes into the 21st century mostly feel obligated to use it.

Er in fairness to the Pinkertons, they were successful in catching robbers pre-civil War. And Alan Pinkerton handle intelligence for much of the term of the Lincoln Adminstration. The Pinkerton's turned to strikebreaking and such as their primary revenue source post US Civil War. And when that was eventually outlawed they became providers of Security Guards, which they still do today, along with conventional PI services.

The point is, at the time Doyle was writing the first Sherlock Holmes story PI brought to mind "Pinkerton" and "Thug" and "Strikebreaker".

Al Swearingen hates their guts.But he's a criminal.

There are any number of ex-FBI agents and other former law enforcement people, plus specialists in particular aspects of forensic science, who consult with police departments today. The original Holmes could say he was the only one, but not a current-day Holmes.

But Sherlock actually investigates. Can a consultant do that without needing a PI license?

And Erika, I was raised to hate PInkertons too. Even after being thugs en masse was outlawed, labor organizers still got beat up by Pinkertons. And Dashiel Hammett always claimed to have stopped being a PI after he turned down a contract from a big Detective Agency to murder a labor leader. I don't remember whether the agency was Pinkertons or not or even if Hammett said, but it probably was.

Sherlock must be living in a world without the concept of Psych or The Mentalist or a bunch of other shows, not to mention real life. I think it is really cheesy to lead with, since it's meaningless.

I think it was, TB.(just read Maltese Falcon last year)

Hrm. So an episode of Sherlock S1 and one of Luther S1 both have the same pivotal plot point. The exact same. Even the wording on discovery is the same. Looks like the Luther ep aired a couple months before the Sherlock one... I imagine there must of been some issues when the Sherlock team found out Luther had used the same significant plot reveal before they went to air? How much creative crossover is there within BBC1 series creators?