#Review - Three Pint Problems by Melvyn Small

Three Pint Problems (The Accidental Detective Book 3)
Melvyn Small
Indipenned, 11 November 2022
Available as: PB, 341pp, e
Source: Purchased
ISBN(PB): 9798840296523

Ever since Conan Doyle stopped writing Sherlock Holmes stories (in fact, probably before...) the character has been reworked, imitated, reinvented, referenced and pastiched. Melvyn Small's take is a pleasingly different example of this - a Holmes of the North East, in fact Middlesboro, firmly living in the 21st century (one of the stories includes a sizeable part for BBC Local Radio). This is a version of Holmes that gets us away from gaslights, Hansoms, cobblestones and deerstalkers. 

(Sort of. Small does pack in a fair few references to the originals, just to prove he knows what he's about - 'Sherlock ever investigated a case that included some sort of hound? I dunno, maybe one terrorising a bunch of posh twats...'; a mention of a horse running in the 'Beryl Coronet'; the 'Baker Street Kitchen' is a cafe and 'The Twisted Lip' a pub, and of course there are namechecks for DI Barry Lestrade and even Col Sebastian Moran - who Holmes was lucky to escape from alive. Indeed the title of the first story is a reference canonical Holmes himself drops in the course of A Scandal in Bohemia (the context being the universal human tendency, in case of fire, to save the most precious thing - a point relevant to this story). There are many more references which I won't spoil - you can have fun hunting them out yourself!)

Three Pint Problems contains four different stories, in order The Darlington Substitution, Murder on the Teesside Princess, The Devil's Advocate and The Riverside Thriller.

The Darlington Substitution isn't, at least not apparently, a case of murder or theft but - like many of the originals - more of a puzzle. I won't spoil the story by saying just what has happened, but it's an oddity, a surprise, that sets Holmes' antennae twitching. But he lacks data and, as ever, John Watson isn't best placed to supply them. Indeed, being preoccupied with selling copies of his memoirs, he doesn't pay a great deal of attention to Holmes's concerns. (The sections detailing signings in bleak branches of WH Smith are written with feeling!)

The story is just the right length for a Holmes case: a novella/ long-short-story is to my mind ideal to introduce a mystery, show how baffling it is, let Holmes do his thing and then wrap everything up. If Small is a little mysterious about precisely how Holmes draws his conclusions, that may be forgiven, Conan Doyle often did the same, but we get a broad hint that detecting is easier in the days of social media so one might imagine he's a skilled at IT, and there are hints at hacker abilities. All this is I think fully line with how the original Holmes was written, a bit of a geek, up with all the latest technology and none too fastidious how he used it.

Murder on the Teesside Princess is more of a locked room mystery, Holmes on the scene when a night to remember aboard a floating restaurant turns bad. A complication is that Holmes has just been arrested, Lestrade having come aboard for the purpose, after an altercation with another passenger. That signals a darker side of Holmes I think - indeed it's becoming clear that he's sometimes on the wrong side of the law. That made me think of how fun the Conan Doyle stories Holmes and Watson get away with so much because of what these days we'd describe as their privilege. No such latitude exists in Small's version, and it's very lucky for Holmes that he's able - without apparent effort - to solve a fiendish crime, alive with misdirection and concealment, handing Lestrade his villain on a plate, and the earlier unpleasantness does, indeed, fade away.

It was in the course of reading this story that I started noticing an elegiac note to Watson't narration, a foreshadowing of Holmes' death something I trust won't be arriving too soon as I've just discovered this series!

The Devil's Advocate continues the darker vein of these stories by giving us Holmes' account of his jury service some decades earlier (bit naughty of him to talk outside the jury room). It's a mastery demonstration of Holmes' methods, but also of the morality behind them. The greatest revelations, in the end, are not "how" but "why". We see Holmes' earlier life depicted in a way that was actually rather moving. That depiction did, though, show that Holmes has his own agendas and that he if far form infallible. 

The final story, The Riverside Thriller, is rather lighter in tone, Holmes getting his teeth into a knotty problem against the clock. There has been a murder at the football stadium and the match is due to begin. Can our hero crack the case before kick-off? An ingenious mystery here, classic Holmes, and great fun.

I loved this version of Holmes. Once you become used to the central characters, and especially to them NOT addressing each other in the slightly stuffy manner of the originals, the stories rattle along. There is some neat writing in places "...hoping I could transform his change of mood into a change of mind..." and use of (I think) real locations in and around Darlington and Middlesborough which slightly passed me by, not knowing the area (but then I don't know Victorian London either?)

All in all an engaging idea, well realised, providing a refreshingly different angle on the Great Detective.

For more information, see the Indipenned website here. You can buy the book on Amazon here.

Blogtour review - Holmes: The Darlington Substitution by Melvyn Small

Holmes: The Darlington Substitution
Melvyn Small
Indipenned, from 14 February 2018
e-book

I'm grateful for an advance e-copy of the book as part of the blogtour.

Ever since Conan Doyle stopped writing Sherlock Holmes stories, the character has been reworked, imitated, reinvented, pastiched. (In fact, probably before that...). I was intrigued to be offered the latest example of this - a Holmes of the North East, firmly living in the 21st century (the story includes a sizeable part for BBC Local Radio). Subtitled "A Boro's Greatest Detective Novella", this is a story that gets us away from gaslights, Hansoms, cobblestones and deerstalkers.

It does, though, pack into its short length a fair few references to the originals, just to prove that Small knows what he's about ("Sherlock ever investigated a case that included some sort of hound? I dunno, maybe one terrorising a bunch of posh twats..."; a mention of a horse running in the "Beryl Coronet"; the "Baker Street Kitchen" is a cafe and "The Twisted Lip" a pub, and of course namechecks for DI Barry Lestrade and even Col Sebastian Moran - who Holmes was lucky to escape from alive). Indeed the title itself is a reference Holmes himself drops in the course of A Scandal in Bohemia (the context being the universal human tendency, in case of fire, to save the most precious thing - a point relevant to this story).

Like many of the originals, this isn't, at least not apparently, a case of murder or theft but more of a puzzle. I won't spoil the story by saying just what has happened, but it's more of an oddity, a surprise, that sets Holmes' antennae twitching. But he lacks data and, as ever, John Watson isn't best placed to supply them. Indeed, being preoccupied with selling copies of his memoirs, he doesn't pay a great deal of attention to Holmes's concerns. (The sections detailing signings in bleak branches of WH Smith are written with feeling!)

The story is just the right length for a Holmes case: a novella/ long-short-story is to my mind ideal to introduce a mystery, show how baffling it is, let Holmes do his thing and then wrap everything up. If Small is a little mysterious about precisely how Holmes draws his conclusions, that may be forgiven, Conan Doyle often did the same, but we get a broad hint that detecting is easier in the days of social media so one might imagine he's a skilled at IT, and there are hints at hacker abilities. All this is I think fully line with how the original Holmes was written, a bit of a geek, up with all the latest technology and none too fastidious how he used it.

So once you become used to the central characters, and especially to them NOT addressing each other in the slightly stuffy manner of the originals, the story rattles along. There is some neat writing in places "...hoping I could transform his change of mood into a change of mind..." and use of (I think) real locations in and around Darlington and Middlesborough which slightly passed me by, not knowing the area (but then I don't know Victorian London either?)

All in all an engaging idea, well realised, providing a refreshingly different angle on the Great Detective.

Chapter 1 of The Darlington Substitution is available from 14 February 2018 on the Indipenned site - go over there now to read and to find out how to get the rest!

Sherlock Holmes and The Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

Image from titanbooks.com

The Cthulhu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows
James Lovegrove
Titan Books, 15 November 2016
HB, 448pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

It is the autumn of 1880, and Dr John Watson has just returned from Afghanistan. Badly injured and desperate to forget a nightmarish expedition that left him doubting his sanity, Watson is close to destitution when he meets the extraordinary Sherlock Holmes, who is investigating a series of deaths in the Shadwell district of London. Several bodies have been found, the victims appearing to have starved to death over the course of several weeks, and yet they were reported alive and well mere days before. Moreover, there are disturbing reports of creeping shadows that inspire dread in any who stray too close. Holmes deduces a connection between the deaths and a sinister drug lord who is seeking to expand his criminal empire. Yet both he and Watson are soon forced to accept that there are forces at work far more powerful than they could ever have imagined. Forces that can be summoned, if one is brave – or mad – enough to dare…

I love a bit of Sherlock Holmes, so was delighted when Titan offered me a copy of the first book in this new series by James Lovegrove.

In his preface, Lovegrove relates the unlikely tale of hos his hitherto unknown family connection with HP Lovecraft led to the receipt of three yellowing typescripts, the work of none other than Dr John Watson, recounting the true story of his adventures with Sherlock Holmes. Are they real? Are they fake? Is the rarefied world of Holmesian scholarship about to be unset? or are even worse revelations in store?

I enjoyed this foray into an almost MR Jamesian world of lost manuscripts and unspeakable horror. Because of course, as the title proclaims, what we have here is the fusion of two great pantheons of popular literature. Holmes and Watson are supported by Mrs Hudson, Gregson, Lestrade and Mycroft - in their world of 221B, fog and hansom cabs (there's a hilarious bit where Lovegrove shows off his knowledge of clarences, growlers and who knows what else wheeled conveyances). Lurking underneath, though, are Elder Gods, tentacles horrors, sanity-blasting books and obsessed cultists.

In the hands of a less skilled writer this could have been a real mess. These two worlds have very distinct rules. While Holmes adventures may have a touch of the sensational and even Gothic, that's only to show off Holmes's superb rationalistic deductive power. And while some of Lovecraft's stories do permit a (temporary) success in driving back the cosmic horror, that's only to counterpoint the cold, bleak despair of what is surely coming to devour us.

Yet Lovegrove does a superb job in combining these immiscible essences, allowing the Great Detective and the Good Doctor to discover sinister horrors and reason themselves in ton accepting them as the only explanation - once the impossible has been removed - for the horrible deaths stalking Shadwell.

On the way, we're treated to a good pastiche of a late Victoria shocker: opium dens, vice ridden dives in the East End and so forth. Of course Lovegrove is writing for a modern audience and he properly contextualises the 'sinister Chinaman' stereotype, making it clear how the opium trade began with the British Empire and dwelling on the horrors inflicted on China. They aren't, of course, cosmic, but one can compare the results of colonialism with the eager, hungry desire of ancient gods to come and consume humanity.

It's all great fun, very smartly done, and with enough enjoyable Holmes references - Watson explains that his earlier stories were distortions, intended to make the truth - to keep the keenest Baker Street Irregular on their toes.

Two further volumes are promised and I look forward to them. My only criticism - and it's a bit of a picky point - would be that in my mind, the classic Sherlock Holmes tale is a short story, Conan Doyle only having written a handful of full length novels. The short story is suited to an incident, a satisfying episode or a minor crime and to highlighting Holmes's methods and world. The novel requires a more spectacular resolution and when you're dealing with Cthulhu and his ilk for 'spectacular' read 'life limiting'. So I'd welcome some short stories set in this world as well, if Mr Lovegrove could oblige...?

Sherlock Holmes and The Shadwell Shadow by James Lovegrove

Image from titanbooks.com

The Cthulhu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows
James Lovegrove
Titan Books, 15 November 2016
HB, 448pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

It is the autumn of 1880, and Dr John Watson has just returned from Afghanistan. Badly injured and desperate to forget a nightmarish expedition that left him doubting his sanity, Watson is close to destitution when he meets the extraordinary Sherlock Holmes, who is investigating a series of deaths in the Shadwell district of London. Several bodies have been found, the victims appearing to have starved to death over the course of several weeks, and yet they were reported alive and well mere days before. Moreover, there are disturbing reports of creeping shadows that inspire dread in any who stray too close. Holmes deduces a connection between the deaths and a sinister drug lord who is seeking to expand his criminal empire. Yet both he and Watson are soon forced to accept that there are forces at work far more powerful than they could ever have imagined. Forces that can be summoned, if one is brave – or mad – enough to dare…

I love a bit of Sherlock Holmes, so was delighted when Titan offered me a copy of the first book in this new series by James Lovegrove.

In his preface, Lovegrove relates the unlikely tale of hos his hitherto unknown family connection with HP Lovecraft led to the receipt of three yellowing typescripts, the work of none other than Dr John Watson, recounting the true story of his adventures with Sherlock Holmes. Are they real? Are they fake? Is the rarefied world of Holmesian scholarship about to be unset? or are even worse revelations in store?

I enjoyed this foray into an almost MR Jamesian world of lost manuscripts and unspeakable horror. Because of course, as the title proclaims, what we have here is the fusion of two great pantheons of popular literature. Holmes and Watson are supported by Mrs Hudson, Gregson, Lestrade and Mycroft - in their world of 221B, fog and hansom cabs (there's a hilarious bit where Lovegrove shows off his knowledge of clarences, growlers and who knows what else wheeled conveyances). Lurking underneath, though, are Elder Gods, tentacles horrors, sanity-blasting books and obsessed cultists.

In the hands of a less skilled writer this could have been a real mess. These two worlds have very distinct rules. While Holmes adventures may have a touch of the sensational and even Gothic, that's only to show off Holmes's superb rationalistic deductive power. And while some of Lovecraft's stories do permit a (temporary) success in driving back the cosmic horror, that's only to counterpoint the cold, bleak despair of what is surely coming to devour us.

Yet Lovegrove does a superb job in combining these immiscible essences, allowing the Great Detective and the Good Doctor to discover sinister horrors and reason themselves in ton accepting them as the only explanation - once the impossible has been removed - for the horrible deaths stalking Shadwell.

On the way, we're treated to a good pastiche of a late Victoria shocker: opium dens, vice ridden dives in the East End and so forth. Of course Lovegrove is writing for a modern audience and he properly contextualises the 'sinister Chinaman' stereotype, making it clear how the opium trade began with the British Empire and dwelling on the horrors inflicted on China. They aren't, of course, cosmic, but one can compare the results of colonialism with the eager, hungry desire of ancient gods to come and consume humanity.

It's all great fun, very smartly done, and with enough enjoyable Holmes references - Watson explains that his earlier stories were distortions, intended to make the truth - to keep the keenest Baker Street Irregular on their toes.

Two further volumes are promised and I look forward to them. My only criticism - and it's a bit of a picky point - would be that in my mind, the classic Sherlock Holmes tale is a short story, Conan Doyle only having written a handful of full length novels. The short story is suited to an incident, a satisfying episode or a minor crime and to highlighting Holmes's methods and world. The novel requires a more spectacular resolution and when you're dealing with Cthulhu and his ilk for 'spectacular' read 'life limiting'. So I'd welcome some short stories set in this world as well, if Mr Lovegrove could oblige...?

Associates of Sherlock Holmes

Image from titanbooks.com

Associates of Sherlock Holmes
Edited by George Mann
Titan Books, 23 August 2016
PB, 378pp
Source: Advance copy kindly provided by the publisher

In this collection brought together by George Mann, we have stories about, or inspired by, people mentioned in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series. I think this is an excellent idea: there are screeds of non-canonical Holmes and Watson stories, so a slightly different angle adds freshness without the need for anything too bizarre.

Inevitably some of these 'associates' (Irene Adler, Lestrade, Mycroft, Col Sebastian Moran) are more memorable than others (Clarence Barker, Billy the Page) so helpfully the authors have written a short introduction to each. That's also useful because some of the stories (not all) riff directly off the canonical ones, and, unless you've lately reread them, the details may be hazy.others. So while it wouldn't do any harm to reread, say,  The Adventure of the Creeping Man or The Adventure of the Three Gables before this book, the intros mean that's not necessary.

Most of the stories, while not narrated by Dr Watson, adopt the same straightforward approach (there is a rational solution which is discovered by logical detective work). There are though a few that bend the rules, for example by flirting with the supernatural (or, in one case, even proposing a supernatural explanation), telling a straight adventure narrative (indeed, almost SFF in one case) or simply acting as a framing device to another story with no great element of detection involved.


Stepping outside the normal Holmes-and-Watson setup also allows some games with the Sherlock universe, such as hints in a couple of stories of things that Watson wouldn't have referred to for reasons of Victorian propriety, or of fallibilities that he (as an unreliable narrator) wouldn't have admitted (one of the stories hints at his gambling addiction).  It as if all those silenced characters - including a number of women - are finally able to dish the dirt on the good Doctor. There is also scope for or fixing continuity errors (Watson's confused marital history) or outright errors (the Speckled Band itself was not, as Holmes admits, a swamp adder).

Inevitably the stories vary rather in theme and tone. I found them all enjoyable but everyone will have their own favourites:

In The River of Silence by Lyndsay Faye, we see Holmes's first meeting with Stanley Hopkins, a young Inspector who turns up in some of the later Conan Doyle stories. Faye convinces with her story told through the voice of Hopkins, and it means she doesn't have to imitate Conan Doyle's style (or, as many have, run the risk of pastiching it). In theme and overall atmosphere, though, the story - opening with a gruesome discovery and proceeding though the fogs of London to a squalid Limehouse -  is very much in keeping with the original tales, right down to the vagueness about illness ("fever") and the mental collapse of one character. It's a nice little origin story for Hopkins, a minor Conan Doyle character, which allows Faye plenty of room to develop his personality and backstory.

Pure Swank by James Lovegrove picks up the story of Clarence Barker, Sherlock Holmes's 'hated rival on the Surrey shore' who appears in The Adventure of the Retired Colourman. Who is Barker, why are he and Holmes rivals - and where is Barker from? These questions are answered in ways that gives a slightly different and more cynical view of the Great Detective. In the end, you're left with a choice to which is the more reliable narrator - Watson or Barker.

Heavy Game of the Pacific Northwest isn't a crime story at all. While it features the brilliant, amoral Colonel Sebastian Moran, he's not up to some sort of caper, nor is he trying to kill Holmes - instead he is again the Great Hunter. It's nice to see this character - who only appears a few times in the canonical stories but who is portrayed so well that he seems to dominate even so - finally step out from behind the curtain.

A Dormitory Haunting by Jaine Fenn picks up the later life of Violet Hunter, the governess from The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, who's now Head of a girls' school. When a mysterious figure begins to haunt the dormitory by night, she remembers Holmes' example and sets out to find the truth. This is a lovely story featuring a determined and independent woman who's not afraid to flout convention.

The Case of the Previous Tenant by Ian Edginton is a rather fantastical concoction focussed in Inspector Barnes who appears only once (in The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge) but seems to be Holmes's equal. That said I wasn't sure he was really allowed to shine in this rather fantastical tale which seems closer in theme to MR James than Conan Doyle.

Nor Hell a Fury by Cavan Scott is definitely my favourite story but then it features The Woman, Irene Adler, so how could it not be?

The Case of the Haphazard Marksman by Andrew Lane features Lansdale Pike, a gossip columnist(!) who originally appeared in The Adventure of the Three Gables. This story was another favourite of mine, I think it nicely captures something of the atmosphere of the originals, with an ingenious mystery that fully stretches both Holmes and Pike, standing in for Watson.

The Presbury Papers by Jonathan Barnes is one of those stories where the introduction helps by going over the salient points of its inspiration, The Adventure of the Creeping Man, but which goes beyond that original in implied depravity and danger. It also brings in Mycroft (as does A Family Resemblance by Simon Bucher-Jones).

William Meikle's A Flash in the Pan revives another one-off Conan Doyle character, the bruiser Shinwell Johnson. It's a slightly sulphurous tale set amongst the cheap places of evening entertainment - and shows Holmes accepting methods that he doesn't want Watson to know too much about.

The Vanishing Snake by Jeffrey Thomas continues the story of Helen Stonor from The Speckled Band, taking the chance to correct a couple of glitches with that and also advancing a new theory about what was really going on in the original. It was a rather different Holmes story and great fun.

Page Turners by Kara Dennison is a nice little story - the one featuring Billy the Page, in a thrilling adventure which comes across as just another tricky day for that resourceful lad.

Finally, Peeler by Nick Kyme features my favourite of Scotland Yard's also-rans, Inspector Lestrade himself (Lestrade also plays a supporting role in The River of Silence). The is a properly grisly story to end the book on, perhaps a little more so than feels natural a Sherlock Holmes story but it's definitely an ingenious mystery.

Review: Warlock Holmes - A Study in Brimstone

Warlock Holmes: A Study in Brimstone
GS Denning
Titan Books, 27 May 2016
PB, e 384pp
Source - advance copy from publisher

Come, Watson - the game's afoot!

It's not that I'm on a Sherlock Holmes binge or anything but in the past few weeks I've read three books with very different takes on the Great Detective. I would like to compare and contrast them and to ask what exactly it is about Holmes that so captivates the imagination, but that's for another day, perhaps...

Warlock Holmes is in some respects the most radical reinterpretation - not only in making Holmes a warlock who holds conversations with demons but in having him very much secondary to Watson in the business of detection. Here it's the good doctor who displays feats of deduction, inferring a chain of thought from a few glances or spotting the sequence of events comprising a  crime. That actually makes a lot of sense: in the classic stories, Watson is using his medical training to do what Conan Doyle saw demonstrated as a medical student at Edinburgh. It's time Watson stepped out of the shadows, but still perhaps a bit of a shock - especially as Holmes is portrayed here as, well, a bit dim.

Of course, in this world, there's no reason for Holmes to painfully deduce what's been going on. He can just speak to the spirits and indeed this method means he's often still ahead  of everyone else (several days, on one occasion). So to make the stories interesting it's pretty much a necessity to rob Holmes of his brilliance, or none of the stories would last very long.

That may sound unpromising and I'm sure that Holmes purists will cringe, but Denning actually manages to riff off the classic stories well well - while subtly twisting everything. The cases are pretty faithful to "real" ones, not only in general structure and in the way the crimes are revealed - the anxious client appearing at 221b to explain their problem, with plenty of misdirection and the real crime only gradually emerging thanks to razor sharp deduction (here, by Watson) - but in tone, too: it's a world of hansoms, mansions set in walled gardens, wild backstories from the California goldrush or the outposts of Empire. But they are a bit... different. Familiar characters appear - Gr(o)gson and Lestrade, a strageely warped version of the Baker Street Irregulars, Colonel Sebastian Moran, Mrs Hudson, Charles Augustus Milverton - but they all play slightly warped roles in this alternate universe.

The idea works a lot better than I'd expected, producing something much fresher than those endless, exact Holmes pastiches that deliver the familiar form yet without any vital spark. You have to recalibrate to a slightly different Holmes, and to a general comic tone which as I have said may alienate some purists (but come on, purists, lighten up!) but it's well worth doing that. It's also refreshing that the cases are pretty much standalone, as in the original stories: while there is a darker threat building, Denning doesn't impose too much of an arc on the separate chapters, allowing each its own beginning, middle and end rather than making it just a building block in something else.

The tour de force is a reimagining of The Speckled Band, in many ways the Sherlock Holmes story, one which was turned into an enormously successful play during Conan Doyle's lifetime. Denning gives it new life: of course if you have read the original story you'll know who the villain is yet there are still surprises and the story really grips as an episode in itself. There are also some nice illustrations by Sean Patella-Buckley complementing the text just as in those original Strand magazine stories.

Overall, then, a nice take on a perhaps overfamiliar character and one that ended - of course - with a cliffhanger to encourage me to pick up the next volume, due out next year.

Blog tour: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? - guest post by Paul Cornell

As you should now, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes by Paul Cornell was published last Thursday, 19 May and it is AMAZING. I attended the launch event at Forbidden Planet in London  (here is Paul reading from the book) and reviewed it here and I'd urge you to go and read it at once (get it at your local bookshop, or here, here or here - or there are some signed copies at Forbidden Planet...)

As if that wasn't enough excitement I'm honoured that as part of his blog tour for the book Paul has written a guest piece for THIS BLOG about the mixed genres of this book

So... enough preliminary stuff: over to Paul!

I've always been interested in what happens when one genre collides with another, so if I was going to do urban fantasy, it was always going to be a police procedural. That is to say, the audience understands what the rules of this world should be, just like the characters do, only to find those rules thrown out of the window.

The heroes of the Shadow Police novels are a team of ordinary modern London Metropolitan Police officers, who accidentally gain 'the Sight', the ability to see the magic and the monsters most people can't. They decide that the only way to survive and stay sane is to use their training to deal with them. They have no magical mentor figure, no ability with magic themselves (though one of them is doing his best to learn), just their wits and an Ops Board that now looks like a piece of gothic art.

In the new novel, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? they encounter the 'corpse' of Holmes' ghost, lying in the Museum at 221b Baker Street, a ceremonial dagger in his back. Ghosts in my London are the collective memories of all Londoners, living and dead, so they include, as well as the famous deceased, fictional and mythological characters. The first question they have to ask is almost an existential one: what does it mean to kill a ghost? Does this have something to do with the three different versions of Holmes being filmed concurrently in London? What about the fact that the crimes of the Conan Doyle canon are being re-enacted, in order, in their original locations?

So we have an impossible situation that's going to be investigated using real world techniques, one genre encountering another, in a very strict way, I think, because this is hopefully what crime fans call a pure whodunit, the sort where the reader can play along. That's important when the fantastic is involved. The characters shouldn't be able to pull out some impossible resource that the author hasn't told the readers about. SF and fantasy readers look for cues, as they read, as to the nature of the world they're discovering. Crime readers are attuned to look for clues and red herrings in the same way, so to some degree mixing those two genres is just a question of carefully substituting one of these things for another. And some energy and surprises can be found in not telling the reader which is which.
I hope the book is satisfying for readers of both genres. And, incidentally, for new readers, since I've made sure that it forms a good jumping-on point if the subject matter has attracted you to your first Shadow Police experience. Myself I'm happy for these books to be called Fantasy Procedurals. That rather trips off the tongue.

Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? was published by TOR UK on 19/07/2016

Paul Cornell has been Hugo-nominated for his work in TV, comics and prose, and is a BSFA award-winner for short fiction. He has also written some of Doctor Who’s best-loved episodes for the BBC, and has more recently written for the Sherlock-inspired TV show Elementary, starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu. He lives in Gloucestershire.

Find out more www.paulcornell.com and @paul_cornell.