Just last week, Paul N. Anderson had the featured article “Addressing the Johannine Riddles—A New Introduction” over at Bible and Interpretation (here). The article outlines Anderson’s approach to the Johannine riddles, as they are presented in his recent book The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An Introduction to John (from Fortress here; from Amazon here; see also Lee Harmon’s review here; Jim West’s review here; Randy Hardwick’s blurb here). The epigraph (abstract?) of the article is as follows:
Despite John’s distinctive and theological character, however, it still renders an independent memory of Jesus of Nazareth deserving full consideration in any effectively critical quest for the historical Jesus. The question is how do to so adequately, given the unique origin and development of the Johannine tradition. If John represents a self-standing Jesus tradition with its own points to make, however, differences with Mark and the Synoptics might contribute to a sense of history rather than diminishing it. This is especially the case when considering John’s ecclesiology, which appears more primitive and undeveloped than other New Testament perspectives, despite being finalized rather late. And, holding John’s distinctive vision for the church in tension with other gospel perspectives, as well as other writings in the New Testament, becomes, perhaps, the greatest riddle of all.
the archives near Emmaus 
Honestly, for a while now I’ve sort of been of the conviction that John might actually display who the historical Jesus was in a more detailed sense than the synoptics. Maybe I’m crazy. I probably am.
Daniel,
That’s an interesting thought. I think your observation about the detailedness of John is right on, especially because some of those details are shared with Mark. I could be that a better comparison is John to Mark, rather than John to the Synoptics.