The Case of the Editor's Error

 So I should mention that I have a new (self-published) short story available now on Amazon as an ebook.

Ta da!

"Dr. Watson discovers a problem in The Final Problem, and unveils the real murderer of Sherlock Holmes."

It's 99¢, which is highway robbery for a 19-page story, but I'm still test-driving KDP and they wouldn't allow me to price it any cheaper.

Eventually I'll probably be able to price it at a nickel-ninety-five, but for now, if you'd like to fill my coffers and read a fun little story that pits Dr. Watson against Arthur Conan Doyle, now's your chance.

Character as algorithm

 

If you’re a writer, you’re familiar with this phenomenon: a character takes on a life of their own, dictating to you what they will and won’t say, will and won’t do. What the hell, you say. I brought you into this novel world, and I can take you out of it.

Well, yes—but that’s your only choice if a character gets uppity. Kill off the character, or delete them. You cannot discipline them.

Why is that? Why can’t you do whatever you want with a character?

Because a character is essentially a set of rules you’ve created. An algorithm, to use a despised word. A series of nested if…then statements that guide the character’s actions.

Take my old friend Sherlock Holmes, for instance. Here is rule number one of the Holmesian canon: Holmes solves puzzles. 

Corollary: he solves them with his mind, not his fists. 

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

 Good news!

As I've mentioned before I'm a member of the scion society Crew of the Barque Lone Star, and a contributor to their 2024 collection of pastiches, Mr. Holmes's Neighborhood, which has been available at Barnes&Noble ...

... and is now available on the Crew's website, in a selection of digital formats, for the very reasonable price of FREE. Which is a deal not to be missed.

Especially if you'd like to read my latest Holmesian effort, titled The Sherlock Holmes Appreciation Society, the tale of the first ever Sherlock Holmes fan club, founded by none other than Colonel Sebastian Moran, and headquartered directly across the street from 221B Baker.

Here's a taste:

My dear Inspector Lestrade,

You will not know me, though I feel as if I know you from my friend Dr.

Watson’s stories in The Strand. My name is…well, perhaps it would be wiser to

leave my name out of the affair. Think of me as Mr. Anonymous, although I

suppose you could hunt down my identity if you and it necessary, since for you to

understand my story at all, I must provide you with my address, or rather my

former address—Camden House, London. Which I’m sure you’ll recognize as the

address opposite 221B Baker St.—the establishment of the consulting detective,

Sherlock Holmes. Which, I assume, is why it was chosen as headquarters for the

Sherlock Holmes Appreciation Society.

I have vital information for you. Sherlock Holmes has been murdered. I realize

that seems an impossible statement. But—

This is no good. I’ll have to go back, back to the very beginning. If I don’t

explain fully and in order, you’ll think me mad. I am not a native Londoner. I’m a

Hampshire man, son of a country squire. But the birthright belonged to my elder

brother, so it was the army for me. I joined the Royal Artillery, was commissioned a second lieutenant, and in 1879 I found myself in Afghanistan taking part in the

Battle of Charasiab. On 6 October we were advancing on Kabul when we engaged

a force of Afghan Regulars. It was my baptism by fire...

Plus there's a plethora (say that five times fast) of delicious stories by the other stalwart sailors who comprise the Crew. Dip in!

Pastiches

 

I'm going to share a secret with you: I don’t read Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Or at least, very few. And the better they promise to be, the leerier I am of them. Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t read pastiches. What do you, think I’m crazy? No, remember I’m a writer, not a reader. Not that writers shouldn’t read pastiches. Far from it. I’m pointing the finger squarely at myself. You see, I’m a sponge. I’m a mimic. I’m very strongly affected by the last thing I’ve read. If I had been reading Dylan Thomas while I was writing The Strange Curse of Eliza Doolittle, I’d have had to name it Eliza’s Christmas in Wales. 

So I didn’t. I stuck to a steady diet of John Watson, M.D., with Pygmalion for dessert. A little taste: 

    Toby, of course, had long since joined his lop-eared dewlapped ancestors in the next life. Rather amazingly, Mr. Sherman, Toby’s owner, was still rattling along this mortal coil, still stuffing animals, still manning the shop in Pinchin Lane. We hung on his bell till we heard the window on the second floor being wrenched open above us. 

“Stand back, Watson,” said Holmes, pulling me aside. Glad I was that he did so; the first thing that came out of the window was a bucket of dirty water, which splashed to the pavement at our feet. The second thing was Sherman’s head in a nightcap. 

“Go away!” he yelled. “I’ll have the law on you!”

 Well, you say, everybody strives to sound like John Watson. And to that I say, some do, and some don’t. It’s not a matter of good or bad writing, it’s largely a matter of intention. For me, the music is of paramount importance. 

And then there’s the matter of edges. The territory a pastiche inhabits is the edges of the Canon. Luckily, Doyle left wide edges to work in. The stories are chock-full of detailed facts, but those facts are always about the case, and almost never about Holmes—or Watson. It’s all those details that a pastiche fills in. For instance, I know that Holmes kicked his

cocaine addiction with the help of Sigmund Freud, because long ago I read the Seven-Per -Cent Solution, by Nicholas Meyers. This was long before I had any intention of writing a Holmes pastiche, before I even heard the word pastiche; as a matter of fact, it was my original inspiration (I’m probably not alone in that). 

But the point is, I can’t have that idea, because someone already had it, and executed it brilliantly. The more pastiches, especially good pastiches I read, the narrower the edges become. 

So, enjoy the pastiches. Hell, enjoy my pastiches. And I promise, when I move on from writing Sherlock Holmes stories, I’ll catch up on my reading.

Holmes the bohemian

 (This post is available in audio format here on Youtube.)

Bohemia, bordered on the North by hope, work, and gaiety, on the South by necessity and courage; on the West and East by slander and the hospital.”  --Henry Murger,   La Vie de Bohème    We often think of Sherlock Holmes as the epitome of the scientific mind, "a calculating machine," as Watson calls him. But Watson also acknowledges another side to Holmes: the Bohemian. Here's an excerpt from, aptly enough, A Scandal in Bohemia:

"...while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.

Another contribution from The Engineer's Thumb:

"I continually visited him, and occasionally even persuaded him to forego his Bohemian habits so far as to come and visit us." 

But was Holmes truly Bohemian?  Or is Watson tossing off the word carelessly, describing Holmes's aversion to society and nothing more? What does the term even mean, beyond its connotation of an anti-social bent? Let's dig in.

Who will play the Sherlocks?

 

Sherlock Holmes devotees all have an opinion on one crucial question: Who played the best Sherlock? From William Gillette to Benedict Cumberbatch, they will wrangle over every actor who was ever measured for a deerstalker cap. Writers of Sherlock Holmes pastiches have a slightly different question, however:

Who would play my Sherlock best?

 

Or in my case, my Sherlocks. (Well,  it'sConan Doyle's Sherlock, of course, but my transliterations thereof.) And I use the plural because I have written three Sherlock books which portray the Great Detective at three very different ages--36, 58, and 70. I suppose if Netflix were doing a miniseries, they'd use one actor and plenty of make-up and CGI. But if they were three separate movies, what then? 

Third Villain

 

As you may know, I published a novel in 2020 called The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle, in which Sherlock Holmes investigates the transformation of Eliza (lifted from Shaw's Pygmalion)  from a girl of the streets into a lady who could pass for a duchess. There are three villains in the mix, two from the world of literature and one from history. There's one guy who did not make the cut for my third villain, though I was sorely tempted:

Rupert of Hentzau.

Not familiar with the name? Maybe this quote will jog your memory: 

For my part, if a man must needs be a knave, I would have him a debonair knave, and I liked Rupert Hentzau better than his long-faced, close-eyed companions. It makes your sin no worse, as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly."

― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

 Rupert is the youngest, most devious and dangerous member of the cabal of Six to replace the rightful king of Ruritania with his younger brother. Of the Six, only Rupert escapes royal retribution (to reappear in the sequel). Why, you may ask, did I reject this extraordinary villain for my pastiche?

First, the dates didn't match up. The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau are both supposed to have taken place in the late 1870s--early 1880s (there's a three-year gap between the two). More importantly, Rupert is mortally wounded and his body burned to ash in the second book. While my conscience might have allowed me to finagle a resurrection for the villain, an urn full of ashes is quite an obstacle to contend with. My story is set in 1912, just after the events set down in Shaw's Pygmalion and before the Holmes story His Last Bow. There's no way I could recast my timeline to accommodate young Rupert (who would have been awfully young for any events pre-dating Prisoner, in which he is supposed to be about twenty-two or twenty-three. I prefer my villains old enough to vote.

(If you've read the book, you'll know I did some mighty fine timeline tap dancing to include my secondary villain. But I think I played fair and square with the reader on that score. My conscience is clear.)

Second, Rupert was too imposing, too dominating, too clever a character for the role of tertiary villain. By his very nature (were I to do justice to him) he threatened to lead me astray from my original focus for my story. (I'm not sure he didn't overpower Hope's intentions for Prisoner. The sequel may have been the writer's revenge upon his villain for upstaging the action.)

But most important, The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle is a bit of a high-wire act. I knew it going in. I was bringing together characters and events created by three Victorian heavy hitters: Arthur Conan Doyle, George Bernard Shaw, and Robert Louis Stevenson (as with assassins, three names always connotes danger). What the story needed was a net.

By a net I mean a story that is essentially a flight of fantasy needs a rudder, an anchor. It needs to be thoroughly grounded in reality. It is essential that the more fantastic your tale, the more grounded in reality your details must be. That's why The Hobbit, the tale of a strange little creature who goes dragon-hunting with a pack of dwarves, begins with a smoke and a tea party. And Bilbo runs off without a handkerchief! Where does The Wind in the Willows start? With spring cleaning! This is why I had to make sure that the alias Holmes assumes to go undercover was a real American Mafioso. And when I needed to delay a train journey I scoured the internet for a possible historical cause. And when I needed someone to impersonate Holmes, I brought in--sorry, you'll have to read the book for that one.

What I needed was someone a bit more prosaic, more grounded in reality than Rupert. I needed a real historic person. One whose interest in Eliza was matrimonial, though not necessarily for himself, someone liable to be taken in by the swirling rumors of her noble, perhaps even royal background.

So I went to work. And I turned up Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria. Rupprecht was 43 in 1912, and his first wife, Duchess Marie Gabrielle, had just died. Which meant that he would be looking for a new wife in 1912. Rupprecht, whose name even sounded like Rupert, who was slated to rule a kingdom nearly as mythical today as Hope's Ruritania was then. He married for a second time in 1921, after the war. Rupprecht was my boy. 

(He never did rule; after the first world war Bavaria was declared a republic. But when Hitler offered to restore the crown to him he turned it down and fled Germany. He was no Nazi.)

He was not right for the villain, though. Only for the predicate. The Prince of Bavaria wouldn't traipse over to England to hunt up a wife. He'd send a minion. But who?

That was where I got really lucky. Y'see, I found out the prince was assigned an adjutant in 1895--Lieutenant Otto von Stetten. For three and a half years von Stetten accompanied the prince on extensive trips across the globe. The lieutenant was 33, the prince 26. They must have become close.

Of course von Stetten was not still the prince's adjutant in 1912. By then Colonel von Stetten (he was to retire as a highly decorated general after the first world war) was a close adviser to King Otto (king in name only; he was considered mad, probably a victim of PTSD, and was deposed in 1913 by his cousin Ludwig, Rupprecht's father. Obviously Otto was skilled at handling ticklish matters.

Who better to seek out a new bride for the bereaved prince?

So I was able to introduce him thusly:

“Looming before me was the man undoubtedly their chief, though he resembled them no more than the hawk does the crow. His countenance was pale, with thin bloodless lips beneath a hussar’s moustache. His grey hair was cropped close under a bowler hat. His eyes were a calm grey sea beneath the welkin of heavy brows. He was carapaced like a turtle in a caped astrakhan greatcoat with blinding brass buttons. He paced back and forth in front of me, a malacca laid casually across his shoulder."

He became one of my favorite characters.

Did I miss my chance at Rupert of Hentzau? By no means. Count Rupert, in exile from Ruritania, could easily have traveled to England seeking revenge on Rudolph Rassendyll and locked horns instead with a younger Sherlock Holmes. But that, as they say, is a tale for another day.

EXT.

Mr. Holmes's Neighborhood

 

Here it is, hot off the presses, my contributor's copy of Mr. Holmes's Neighborhood--34 new Sherlock Holmes stories by members of the Crew of the Barque Lone Star, a scion society of the famed Baker St. Irregulars founded some fifty-five years ago in Dallas, Texas.

I haven't read it yet, but it promises a peep inside the keyholes of the neighborhood surrounding 221B Baker Street, including my own prequel/sequel to Conan Doyle's seminal tale, The Empty Room, which is called--

The Sherlock Holmes Appreciation Society. The first Sherlock Holmes fan club turns out to have been the most dangerous.

I don't have an exact publication date yet, but Mr. Holmes's Neighborhood will soon be available at Barnes and Noble online and elsewhere. Keep a weather eye open, friends!

I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere Review of The Strange Case of the Pharoah's Heart

Timothy Miller's The Strange Case of the Pharoah's Heart is a uniquely intriguing piece of Sherlockian writing, integrating real-life historical events and genre themes into a compelling read that deserves your attention.

Miller's premise is intriguing and unique: in 1923, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson had a serious falling-out over their belief systems. Sherlock Holmes has adopted the philosophy of spiritualism over his usual belief in deduction much to Dr. Watson's chagrin. Although they split, Watson is approached by Lady Evelyn Carnarvon whose father sponsored the expedition that discovered the Tomb of Tutenkamen. Soon, Holmes and Watson are joined by a third character, a woman named Estelle Roberts who is a medium who can communicate with the dead.

Read the whole review at I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere.

Sherlock, son of Sigerson?

      

Firstly I suppose I should say that the following is mere conjecture, though pretty thoroughly researched as far as it goes. But I don't actually believe a large part of it myself, having even more outlandish theories up my sleeve. I just can't resist starting a few hares.

I suppose the first question we should ask is this: why does Sherlock Holmes never mentions his parents, not even if they are alive or dead? It seems strange, doesn’t it? Here are a few more questions which follow:

1.       Why is Sherlock so distant from his brother Mycroft?
2.       Why are the brothers separated in age by seven years?
3.       Why did neither of the brothers inherit their  father's estate?
4.       Why did he choose the name Sigerson as his alias?

Well, then, what do we know about Holmes’s parents? Very little. We know from The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter that: “My ancestors were country squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to their class." 

Let’s assume for the moment that his father was one such squire (although it’s interesting the way he phrases it, skirting actual mention of his father). Let’s call him Squire Holmes. Perhaps he is a Sussex landowner, since Holmes elects to retire in Sussex. We’ll come back to him.

We know a little more of Sherlock’s mother, however, since he goes on to mention “my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the French artist.” Vernet, the French artist was a very real person, or rather very real people, a family of artists who mainly married into other artistic families, all quite successful. Let’s take a look at the generations:

• Jean Vernet, d. 1753
• Claude Vernet, d. 1789
• Carle Vernet, d. 1836
•  Horace Vernet, d. 1863

While two of his forebears had sisters (Jean had five, but they lived early enough that Holmes would have referred to them as great or even great-great grandmothers.  Carle's sister Emilie, was guillotined during the Terror. Her daughter Louise-Josephe, was married twice, but neither of her husbands were named Holmes, according to the genealogies. Claude had only brothers.

So it’s almost certainly Horace Vernet that Holmes was referring to. And while the fame of Vernet has been swept away by Manet, Monet, and the rest of the Impressionists, it’s worth noting that he was in his time the most famous of French painters, fabulously successful.

Only Horace’s sister, Camille (b. 1788 d. 1858) therefore, could be his grandmother. Camille wed Hippolyte LeComte, another successful painter, and had three children: Emil (another painter), Fanny (another painter), and Louise. Genealogical records are silent on whether Louise was also a painter (and silent on everything about her other than her name and birthdate), but there can be little doubt she knew her way around an easel. 

Fanny was born in 1809, Louise in 1815. Since Sherlock was born (according to most chronologists) in 1854, that would mean Louise would have had him at the age of 39—a dangerous age to give birth, especially in the Victorian era. Indeed, her first child, Mycroft, would have been born when she was 32. We can eliminate Fanny from our calculations. At 45, she almost certainly would have been too old for childbirth. Even at Louse’s age, childbirth would have been a dangerous proposition.

Perhaps the reason no other siblings are mentioned is that Mrs. Holmes had a number of miscarriages? This would certainly explain the age gap between the two brothers.

But how would this tame English squire and the bohemian French lady ever have met? And why marry? I’m afraid it was not for love, although Louise Vernet-LeComte was probably a fascinating woman, even though, in the parlance, an “old maid.”

They would almost certainly have met in Paris, possibly in 1845, where Louise would have been living with her brother Emil, six years her junior, where she would have acted as mistress of his household. But by this time, he would probably have become betrothed to twenty-year old Amelie Cournol, whom he would wed in 1846. Two women in a household was bad luck. Louise was superfluous, and Emil would want her off his hands.

But what was Squire Holmes doing in Paris for the extended period necessary for courtship? Maybe it’s time to define “squire,” –a definition which by necessity is quite broad.

The large landowners—squires were all landowners—had hereditary estates, which varied in size which averaged about 10,000 acres, and drew enough income to build great parks and manors, keep servants and livery, and keep them in the style to which we’d all like to be accustomed. The estates in Sussex were mainly of this sort.

A rung below were the gentry, who typically owned less than 1,000 acres of land, who either leased plots to tenant farmers or managed farms themselves.

Slindon House

Let’s split the difference. We’ll imagine that Squire Holmes was the proprietor
of Slindon. Slindon Estate is 3,500 acres of woodland, downland, farmland, and parkland. With its unspoilt Sussex village, Slindon was originally the summer home of Stephen Langdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose election to the position helped precipitate the crisis which led to the signing of the Magna Carta. Slindon is seven miles from East Dean on the vast Gilbert Estate, where Holmes is supposed to have had his villa. The actual owner at the time in question was the Countess of Newburgh, but I’m sure she won’t mind lending it to us.

So why would Squire Holmes abandon this idyllic estate, with a house built during the reign of Elizabeth I? There are really only two possibilities which make sense. I’m afraid the most likely explanation is that he was in flight from creditors, and seeking a wealthy wife for an influx of new funds. 

Alternatively he could have been fleeing from the legal consequences of a duel. Though dueling was outlawed in England in 1819, he last recorded duel in England took place in 1852—between two French expats. Dueling had become increasingly seen as a dishonorable means of setting disputes between gentlemen and more teeth had been put into the penalties for engaging in them. So I think we can eliminate this possibility.

How did the Squire’s ruin come to pass? In a word, no, two words, bad management. It would indirectly have been a result of the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846,  protectionist tariffs which had restricted the importation of grain.

 Landowners were certain the repeal would make corn prices drop precipitously and reduce them all to penury. Coupled with the rise in wages for farm workers as more laborers moved to the cities, the squirearchy was forced to diversify, developing their land for housing, or mining.  As a matter of fact, Thomas Read Kemp, an even larger Sussex landowner (and Member of Parliament), who was involved in some speculative land deals had to flee to Paris in 1837 and died there in 1844.

If Holmes had gambled on finding coal on his land and failed, he might have found new horizons in foreign countries extremely attractive. France was a favorite refuge for wealthier English debtors seeking to avoid prison.

La fidèle (1866)

Émile Vernet-Lecomte 

 And where to meet an artist but at the Paris Salon,  the worls's grandest art exhibition, where in 1846 Emil won a bronze medal (his third), perhaps for one of his first portraits of an Oriental lady which he was to become famous for. The squire would have been in need of a moneyed wife, and LeComte at this point would have wanted to unburden himself of a sister (a sister who if she was anything like her son, would have been more intelligent and more domineering than his young wife could bear). It would not be long before the squire was introduced to Louise, and to her dowry, which would have been satisfactorily plump.

 It would have been enough, anyway, for the squire to return safely to England with his new bride. And she would soon be pregnant and give birth to Mycroft. 

 The child is father to the man. What are we to make of indolent, overweight Mycroft, one of the founders that temple to silence, the Diogenes Club? This is what I would make of him: he probably had Einstein syndrome, named after the famous physicist, who did not speak in complete sentences till he was five years old. The syndrome is also accompanied by outstanding analytical skills. An indolent, silent child whose father probably thought him an idiot. Not a proper heir for the landed class. He looked forward to better. 

What he got were miscarriages. And disappointment. And a fiery foreign wife who was no asset to him. Whether he sent her back to her people or whether she banged out the door of her own accord, whether Mycroft went with her (likely) or stayed with his father, she returned to Paris.

Sigerson's biography

Where, in 1854, she would have met eighteen-year-old George Sigerson. Now there’s a familiar name. George was an Irish lad, from county Tyrone. He was attending to St. Joseph’s College on the Rue de l’Enfer. George won 1st prize in drawing (perhaps tutored on the sly by Madame Holmes?), religious knowledge, and German, in 1854. He returned home after graduating in1855, winning first in Greek, Latin, and German (but not drawing). It would have been a May-September romance, understood as a brief fling by both of them. He likely never knew he had a child by Louise. As soon as she realized she was pregnant, she would have hied herself back to England and reconciliation with  her husband, to make sure that her youngest son was legitimate.

George Sigerson went on to become a neurrologist, scientist, and one of the most prominent members of the Irish Literary Revival. He also became an important backer of Gaelic football. The Sigerson Cup is named for him. He married and had four (more) children. He probbably never suspected that the famous Sherlock Holmes was his son, although Sherlock must have discovered the truth and thought of himself in private as Sherlock Sigerson. 

Exit George Sigerson.

 So, why the distance between Sherlock and Mycroft? Besides their considerable age difference, they were only half-brothers.  And I posited another reason in my first book, The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle. 

But why did neither inherit the estate? The squire must have had a child (or children) by his first wife, Hope (who died in childbirth),  the elusive elder brother Sherrinford. Would he have got along with his younger siblings? Hard to say, but he certainly kept his distance. He would have inherited the bulk of  the estate. The Squire would have used his influence to secure Mycroft a minor position with Her Majesty's government, from which he rose to great heights. Sherlock, whom the squire always suspected was no son of his, inherited only the clothes on his back. He was a natural mimic and seemed destined for a career in the theatre. There's a book somewhere in that.

And that is truth about Sherlock's parentage--well, no it's not. Although the possibility is raised in my third book, The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart, it's discredited, although the squire's paternity is also soundly rejected. Well, then, who was Sherlock's daddy, according to my lights? I'd rather not say, in case I get around to telling that tale. I have scattered a few clues in The Pharaoh's Heart, however,  for the detectives among you.

*By the by, the name "Sigerson" means "son of victory." So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

      

      

      

Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell

 With a couple of his recent Sherlock Holmes pastiches, Nicolas Meyer has stepped up his game. Not in terms of plotting or character, at which he has always been the gold standard, or in his channeling of the voice and more importantly the heart of John Watson (for Watson's heart is Sherlock's heart, much as Watson's voice is Sherlock's voice). But the world of Sherlock Holmes is essentially domestic, with criminals who will be dealt with by the courts (once Holmes has revealed then to Scotland Yard). But in The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols and now his latest, Sherlock Holmes and the Telegraph from Hell, the author moves Holmes onto the world stage, raising the stakes of his investigations enormously.

The plot is simple: what if the outcome of World War I depended upon the contents of a telegram, and Britain were desperate to know the contents of that telegram? Well, it did. The story of the Zimmerman Telegram is historical fact. Meyer's inspired move is to couple that fact to Doyle's (or Watson's) story "His Last Bow," which hints at Holmes's role in the war about to engulf Europe. And thereby hangs a tale that takes Holmes and Watson in their twilight years from London to Washington to Mexico City, dogged by assassins every step of the way.

The truth is, this isn't really a detective story, though it's strewn with Holmes's customary legerdemain. And it's not really a spy story, though Watson can hardly turn around without bumping into a spy. It's a coming of age story for a man in his sixties who has come to realize that his fog-bound streets, hansom cabs, and skills at single-stick are not enough to see him through the dangerous new world of the 20th century. He must confront his own parochialism, the smallness of his lifelong efforts against evil.  

Don't misunderstand me. There's plenty of adventure and derring-do in this novel, but there's an elegiac mood to it, too. And that raises it above Meyer's previous efforts. Which makes it all the more worth the read.

Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell is available at Amazon.

[I wouldn't add this in a review for Amazon or Goodreads since I don't think a review should be about the reviewer, but if you're reading it on my blog, you know that I've written some Sherlock Holmes novels myself, and have some idea of the pitfalls involved in this kind of novel. And you've probably heard me mention that Meyer's The Seven Per-cent Solution was the inspiration for my own efforts. So imagine my consternation when, in the middle of editing The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart, I learned that Meyer was about to come out with his own Sherlock Holmes meets the mummy tale, The Return of the Pharaoh, and how relieved I was to learn that the pharaoh in his tale was not Tutankhamun and his story was nothing like mine. Which is preface to say that I came upon the story of the Zimmerman Telegram about a year ago and contemplated writing a Holmes short story based on it. I thank procrastination I didn't go ahead with that one.]

KRL review of the Pharaoh's Heart

"The Strange Case of the Pharaoh’s Heart is a paranormal romp with Holmes and Watson, and a time warp to the well-researched 1920s, from glittering haunts of the rich to the tombs of the Valley of the Kings."

Read the entire review at KRL News and Reviews.

Q&A with Fresh Fiction

 

How did you decide where your book was going to take place?

Luxor and London were pretty much de rigeur for a story about Sherlock Holmes and the pharaoh’s curse. Monte Carlo was just for fun, and the Reichenbach Falls seemed like a good place to kill off Holmes. 

Wait! Did I say that? 

Did I do that?

A little bit about Holmes, a little bit about Tut, a little bit about me. Catch the whole piece at Fresh Fiction.

Behind the book with Crimespree Mag

 

Where I blame it all on Doyle:

"There wasn’t supposed to be a third book. I mean, a second Sherlock Holmes book made sense, because I had already written it, lo these many years ago, as a screenplay. So my second book actually inspired my first one. that was alright. That was cool."

Read it all at Crimespree Mag.

Review: The House of Silk

 

The House of Silk is a bright red herring. It’s misdirection. If you’ve read Anthony
Horowitz (and I’ve only dipped a toe in that deep lake), you know that misdirection is his specialty. What’s safe to tell you? It’s a Sherlock Holmes tale, pre-Reichenbach Falls, and it starts out with a simple little mystery that snowballs (thanks to a murder that wounds Holmes to the core) into a giant conspiracy which lands Holmes in the mulligatawny so badly that even God (for God, read: Mycroft Holmes) cannot help him. Watson and Lestrade can’t help him. It’s so bad that even his mortal enemy tries to help him. 

   He gets out of the frying pan (through a fine bit of misdirection—and goes right back into the fire. We rarely see Holmes take such foolhardy risks as he does in this tale, but we have seen it when his dander is truly up, and it often places him on the wrong side of the law. And we rarely see him place Watson in such peril, but Watson is always faithful, even in the teeth of a trap.

     It's not a perfect tale. Giant conspiracies have a way of living another day. And there’s a wholly unnecessary cameo by a favorite villain (I have a feeling it’s a setup for a sequel.) But when the giant herring is finally landed, there’s an extremely satisfying ending to the minnow mystery we began with. The hand is quicker than the eye. An indispensable addition to your Holmes collection. 

     (Did I give away a shred of the plot? No? Good.)

The House of Silk can be found here on Amazon.

Review: The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols

Before we are very far into The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols we learn that the protocols in question are the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And if you know that name, you’ll know from the outset that this is the tale of one of Holmes’s failures. You’ll know that Holmes could not possibly have won this fight. You’ll perhaps question whether it’s a completely Quixotic mission that he and Watson are embarked on. But you won’t question their desperate need to attempt the impossible.

     The story begins rather Jason Bourne-like. A British secret agent is found drowned, with a terrible document in her possession, which purports to be a plot by a cabal of Jews to take over the world. Holmes is tasked by brother Mycroft to find out whether it’s truth or fiction. Needless to say, they’re soon satisfied on that score. But Holmes wants to take things further, to trace the lie back to its source, to expose the perpetrators, to remove its potency forever. 

    This will involve our heroes in a dangerous journey to the heart of tsarist Russia, to the site of a deadly pogrom, dogged at every step by Russian secret police who will stop at nothing to protect the source of the protocols from exposure. And the journey back will prove eve more dangerous than the journey there. Journey with Holmes and Watson (and a lovely femme fatale) across Europe on the fabulous Orient Express, by milk train and hayrick and in coffins, tilting with windmills all the way. 

     If you’re familiar with the Protocols, you’ll want to read this. If you’re not, you must read this one.

The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols can be found here on Amazon.

Missed Opportunity?

 Let me get this out of the way: I hate to criticize, so let me just say after one episode that Netflix's The Irregulars is not my cup of tea. It's not your cup of tea. It's not a cup of tea at all. More like a cup of treacle, if I had ever tasted treacle, which I haven't, and I do not intend to test my simile.

But among its many apostasies from the Canon, one struck me. 

Girls. 

Girls in the Baker St. Irregulars.

And why not? Although Doyle only mentions boys, that doesn't actually preclude the possibility of girls in the group. He mainly refers to them as street arabs (a term which I suspect has fallen out of favor in our more enlightened times). And even if Holmes specifically required boys, who's to say that a young girl dressed as a boy wouldn't have escaped his notice? He wouldn't have strip-searched them. I think he left recruiting details up to Wiggins.

So why, pray tell, couldn't a motherless, nearly fatherless, ragamuffin girl of the streets been a member? 

A girl named Doolittle.

Eliza Doolittle.

Now, if this possibility had occurred to me when writing The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle, would I have incorporated it into the book? Very possibly. It would be hard to resist. How much or how little would it have changed the telling? I'd hate to speculate here, because even speculation would require innumerable spoilers. I'll let you rewrite in your minds, as you're reading or re-reading the novel. And let you mull over the road not taken.