Creating a Legend: Sherlock Holmes

Imagine creating a character so popular that when you get bored with him, and try to kill him off, your readers rail against you. Finally, public opinion forces you to resurrect your creation. This is exactly what happened to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the world’s greatest detective (apart from Hercule Poirot who considers himself the world’s greatest detective).

Sherlock Holmes is an unforgettable character that has possibly changed the literary face of detectives. A London-based “consulting detective” whose abilities border on the phenomenal, Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his chameleon like ability to change his appearance, and his use of forensic science skills to solve difficult cases.

The Guinness World Records has consistently listed Sherlock Holmes as the “most portrayed movie character” with 75 actors playing the part in over 211 films.

Conan Doyle wrote the first set of stories over the course of a decade. Wanting to devote more time to his historical novels, he killed off Holmes in The Adventure of the Final Problem, which appeared in print in 1893. Conan Doyle considered the Holmes stories light reading, money spinners, but quickly forgotten, the literary equivalent of airport fiction.

“I couldn’t revive him if I would, at least not for years,” he wrote to a friend who urged Holmes' resurrection, “for I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day.”

The public reaction to Holmes's death was astonishing. People behaved as if Sherlock Holmes was a real person, so strongly had the great detective’s quirks and characteristics imprinted themselves on readers’ minds. They even wore black armbands and wrote Conan Doyle both pleading and threatening letters. No author likes being told what to write and it was a long nine years before he capitulated to public opinion and brought Holmes back. After Conan Doyle revived Holmes, he continued to write Holmes stories for another 24 years.

Sherlock Holmes aficionados refer to the period from 1891 to 1894--the time between Holmes's disappearance and presumed death in The Adventure of the Final Problem (at the hands of Moriarity at Reichenbach Falls) and his reappearance in The Adventure of the Empty House--as "the Great Hiatus."

So, what really happened during these lost years?

Holmes tells Dr. Watson in laconic fashion: "I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa and spending some days with the head Lama."

Two years is a long time. There must have been more to it than that, but without Dr. Watson as the faithful scribe, how could anyone know the truth?

Author Jamyang Norbu offers an explanation in The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, a non-canonical Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel.

Holmes and Moriarty struggle at the Reichenbach Falls

After surviving the incident at the Reichenbach Falls, Holmes travels east to escape Moriarty's henchmen. One wonders, if Holmes survived, what happened to Moriarty? His agents are still active, it seems. In India, Holmes meets a Bengali spy, Huree Chunder Mookherjee, assigned to accompany and protect Holmes during his mission to Tibet, for mission it was. Holmes has adopted the disguise of a Norwegian explorer called Sigerson so that he is able to protect the young 13th Dalai Lama from assassination by a Chinese-backed evil sorcerer, whose secret identity will come as no surprise when revealed. Holmes, ever pragmatic, finds himself at the mercy of mystical elements that almost (but not quite) overpower him as his expedition leads him into the fabled Shambala and events beyond common understanding. Mookherjee admirably takes on the role of narrator, with a quaint turn of phrase and shocked exclamations as things become considerably more dangerous with every passing day. A helpful glossary at the back of the book assists readers with unfamiliar words and phrases.

The author draws heavily on books and descriptions of the era, notably Kipling's Kim and Charles Allen’s Plain Tales from the Raj. I loved this book, although the plot veers into a kind of mysticism, which Conan Doyle is more famous for, than his creation. However, the Great Game is wonderfully evident. Holmesian aficionados will not be disappointed although some Baker Street purists might disapprove. The author has captured Holmes' dry wit and abrasive, often mercurial personality.

There are several extremely amusing references in this helter-skelter tale of darkness and derring-do. Note: readers who wondered about the Giant Red Leech, hinted at by Watson, will have their questions answered here. I thought the book admirably echoed the tradition of Conan Doyle and Holmes' many adventures.

A sad, one could say tragic element of the story is the author's concern with China's occupation of Tibet. He weaves in a pertinent political message, but in a subtle way that never interferes with the story.

The Art of Murder (Writing)

I love murder! I should qualify that statement by saying I love a good mystery and if it includes a dead body or two in the library, so much the better! From Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s canny detective to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, to Midsomer Murder’s Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby, to the slew of murder and mystery thriller writers on the shelves today, each writer has something fascinating to offer in the way of (dare I say that word again?) murder. But how about the authors of murderous writing? Do they all write the same? Are all murder mysteries the same? No, there are rules and shades of differentiation. Here’s the opinion of an expert who is my guest today. Please welcome Shelia Lowe, author of the Claudia Rose Forensic Handwriting series. Her titles are compelling, just demanding to be read: Poison Pen, Written in Blood, Dead Write, and Last Writes.

What makes Sheila an expert is her more than 35 years experience in the field of handwriting. The author of Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Handwriting Analysis, her analyses of celebrity handwritings have appeared in Time, Teen People, and Mademoiselle. Her articles on Personality Profiling and Handwriting Analysis for the Attorney have been published in several bar association magazines. Her expertise in forensic graphology makes her the perfect author for her Forensic Handwriting series.

I was fascinated to find that Forensic Graphology is the study of handwriting especially that found in ransom notes, poison pen letters or blackmail demands. Although this is a recognised and called upon scientific technique Forensic Graphology cannot tell a person's age or sex from the handwriting. What it can do however is give indications as to the person's state of mind at the time of producing a particular document, be it a blackmail letter, a poison pen letter or a suicide note. In addition, you can tell a lot about a person by the way they write—or more importantly—in the words they write. It has become commonplace now for us as individuals to write in the same manner as we speak, using abbreviations, slang and colloquialisms that vary from person to person and indeed place to place. These are important and a Graphologist can make good use of these things during the investigative process. So the next time you’re writing that blackmail note… be afraid … be very afraid!

Let’s hear it from Shelia Lowe about The Art of Murder (Writing)

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? With six of the top ten hardcover fiction books on the New York Times bestseller list in the mystery/crime genre, clearly, many readers do. And since my own mystery series has been published over the past four years, I’ve learned that a very large number of people are interested in getting their own mysteries published, too.


I’ve heard it said that there are three rules in mystery writing...but nobody knows what they are...ba dum bum. Seriously, all fiction requires plotting, characterization, setting, dialogue, and point of view, but the mystery genre has some other special stuff of its own. But before you even get to those things, you’ll need to know what subgenre you are writing. Subgenre affects who your audience—your all-important market is going to be. The subgenres include soft-boiled cozy (traditional) mysteries, medium-boiled psychological suspense, and hard-boiled gritty noir, police procedurals, thrillers. Who knew it could get so complicated?


In cozy mysteries there is little or no on-scene violence, bad language or, heaven forbid s-e-x. Cozies feature an amateur sleuth who is an ordinary person, such as Jessica Fletcher of Murder She Wrote, or Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. The sleuth knows the people who are involved in the mystery and the story is typically set in a village or a small community where there is a limited pool of suspects. There’s generally a puzzle that has to be solved in order to get the bad guy or gal, which is why cozies are sometimes known as “locked room mysteries.” For example, how did the killer do his deadly deed when the door to the room where the body is found is locked from the inside and there are no other exits?


Police procedurals have a protagonist who works in law enforcement, usually a police detective, such as Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch. The detective follows police procedures (or doesn’t, and gets his butt kicked by his superiors as a result), and often has personal problems to deal with, such as alcohol or drug abuse, several troublesome ex-spouses, and run-ins with authority figures in the department.

Thrillers are fast-paced, action-oriented, and tend to be more graphically violent. Think Jason Bourne. The reader may know from the outset who the bad guy is—a spy or terrorist, perhaps—and we might see him plotting some horrible crime that is going to affect an entire population. The larger scale plot is the polar opposite from the setting of the cozy.


In stories of psychological suspense, character is emphasized more than plot. Thus, there may be less physical action, but a closer focus on who the various characters are and their reasons for doing what they do. My own Forensic Handwriting Series falls into this subgenre. My protagonist, Claudia Rose, is drawn into each plot through her clients. She doesn’t solve crimes with handwriting analysis, but she does learn about the motivations of the various people who populate the stories.


Once you’ve figured out your subgenre, you’ll have to figure out the crime, the precipitating event. Then, there are the subplots, the suspects, and the red herrings you’ll plant, making sure there is tension on every page. But those are subjects for another blog.

I will certainly be featuring Sheila again to learn more about those subgenres! Thanks for sharing those words of wisdom with us. Interested readers can visit Sheila’s site, and find the Amazon links to her books.

Book Review: The Devil and Sherlock Holmes

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness and Obsession by David Grann



My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Inspired by a review on Galleycat, and being a devoted fan of Sherlock Holmes, I purchased this book with eager anticipation. I have mixed feelings about it because I really did want more of Sherlock Homes. Only the first story deals with the famous detective, but I already knew that from the review I'd read. However, the book is riveting adventure reading. An acclaimed New Yorker staff writer, David Grann does not disappoint when it comes to giving the reader electrifying reading material. This is a magnificent collection of spellbinding true stories about murder, madness, and the kind of obsession that grips the human psyche. Sherlock Holmes once said that "life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind of man could invent." David Grann leads the investigation in a true spirit of discovery as he sets out to solve a dozen real-life mysteries. The stories are unforgettable, as are the true characters that populate them. Entertaining and compelling!



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