My Sherlock Holmes Read online

  About the Authors

  CARA BLACK (“Cabaret aux Assassins”) lives in San Francisco. She and her husband, a bookseller, have a son who wanted her to write about “Sherlock Holmes and the Red-headed League,” his favorite. However his mother thought it had been done quite well the first time. Cara Black writes the Anthony award-nominated Aimee Leduc Investigations, set in different arrondissements of Paris, including Murder in the Marais, Murder in Belleville, and Murder in the Sentier (for which she did the cover photograph), and is at work on Aimee’s next case. Her Web site address is www.carablack.com.

  GERARD DOLE (“The Witch of Greenwich”) is a music historian who writes old-fashioned detective stories for his pleasure. He is the author of The New Adventures of the Chevalier Dupin and The Exploits of Harry Dickson, the American Sherlock Holmes Dole lives a bohemian life in an artist’s studio which was once the garret of Arthur Rimbaud, in Saint-Germain des Prés, Paris.

  GEORGE ALEC EFFINGER (“The Adventure of the Celestial Snows”) is an award-winning, highly regarded science fiction and fantasy writer who, looking for new worlds to conquer, is making the transition to writing in the mystery and crime fields. He has been nominated for the World Science Fiction Convention’s Hugo award and for the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Nebula awards a total of about a dozen times, and won both the Hugo and the Nebula for the novelette “Schrodinger’s Kitten.” He has written over twenty novels, including the two crime novels Felicia and Shadow Money, and published six collections of his shorter fic ion. Effinger lives in New Orleans, where he spends his time hitting his computer with a stick and complaining about the noise. [Note: George died suddenly in late April 2002. He is missed.]

  C. D. EWING (“And the Others”) claims to be a direct descendant of Alexandre Dumas the elder, but not the younger. This presents several interesting questions, which can be safely ignored. A graduate of Miskatonic University, with a masters degree in Pre-Human Religion, Mr. Ewing has devoted his life to supporting lost causes, his dog Barnabas, and, sequentially, a number of winsome, waiflike women, who eventually move on to less ephemeral men. His interest in Sherlock Holmes dates back to a chance meeting in a London pub, where he overheard the following dialogue: “I call your attention to what the dog did in the nighttime.” “But the dog did nothing in the nighttime.” “You are mistaken. Examine your shoe.” Ewing sold his first story to a men’s magazine called, if he remembers correctly, Men’s Magazine. It was a well researched study of nautical commerce in the third century B.C.E., entitled “Assan Mongu and the Slave Girls’ War Galley.” He then went into the shrubbery, from which he has yet to emerge.

  MEL GILDEN (“The Adventure of the Forgotten Umbrella”) is the author of many children’s books, the latest to appear in hardcover being The Pumpkins of Time. In 1999 his first Cybersurfer book (written with Ted Pedersen) won the Selezione Bancarellino, a prestigious Italian award for children’s fiction. Books for grown-ups include Surfing Samurai Robots, and four novels written in the Star Trek universe: The Pet (written with Pedersen), Cardassian Imps, Boogeymen, and The Starship Trap. Gilden has also published short stories in many original and reprint anthologies, most recently Bruce Coville’s Book of Alien Visitors and The Ultimate Alien He spent five years as cohost of Los Angeles radio’s science-fiction interview show, Hour-25, and was assistant story editor for the DIC production of The Real Ghostbusters. He has written cartoons for TV, and has even developed new shows. Among his credits are scripts for Fraggle Rock, The Defenders of the Earth, James Bond Jr., Phantom 2040, Flash Gordon, and The Mask. Gilden has been known to teach fiction writing, most recently at the UCLA Extension. He is a member of Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Mystery Writers of America, and PEN. He lives in Los Angeles, California, where the debris meets the sea, and still hopes to be an astronaut when he grows up.

  BARBARA HAMBLY (“The Dollmaker of Marigold Walk”) is a study in authorial ubiquity. If there’s a writing genre around, she has probably written at least one book in it, and been nominated for at least one award in it. “I always wanted to be a writer but everyone kept telling me it was impossible to break into the field or make money,” Hambly says. “I’ve proven them wrong on both counts.” And so she has. Her fantasies are dark and richly imagined, and contain more than the usual amount of well-realized romance, but to categorize them any further is impossible since, from The Ladies of Mandrigyn and its sequels to Bride of the Rat God (now there’s a title!), each is brilliantly unique. Her historical mysteries such as The Quirinal Hill Affair, which takes place in ancient Rome, and A Free Man of Color, set in 1833 New Orleans, are well plotted and show such familiarity with the settings that one would swear that she has a time machine in her basement. Hambly is a past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, a Locus award winner, and has been nominated many times for the SFWA’s Nebula award. She lives in Los Angeles with multiple animals, including a pair of pert Pekingese.

  MICHAEL KURLAND (“Years Ago and in a Different Place”) is the author of more than thirty books, mostly mysteries and science fiction, but with a smattering of nonfiction, including How to Solve a Murder: The Forensic Handbook and How to Try a Murder: The Handbook for Armchair Lawyers. Handbook and How to Try a Murder: The Handbook for Armchair Lawyers. His most recent novel is The Great Game, third in a series of Professor Moriarty mysteries. The fourth, The Empress of India, will be out later this year. His short stories have appeared in many anthologies, including The Best of Omni II, 100 Malicious Little Mysteries, and The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes. He has been nominated twice for the MWA’s Edgar award, and once for the American Book Award. Kurland lives in Petaluma, California, with a truly lovely lady and an assortment of dogs and cats. More than you want to know about him can be found at his Web site: www.michaelkurland.com.

  GARY LOVISI (“Mycroft’s Great Game”) has been a Holmes fan and reader for decades. He has written one other pastiche, The Loss of the British Bark Sophy Anderson, which was based on a Watson reference in the canon, as well as various Sherlockian articles, including an article on hardcover pastiches for FIRSTS. His Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective in Paperback bibliography will be out next year. He is the editor of Paperback Parade, the leading publication on collectable paperbacks in the world. As the founder of Gryphon Books he has published many Holmes pastiches by authors such as Frank Thomas, Ralph Vaughan, and others, as well as nonfiction Sherlockiana. You can reach him at his Web site: www.gryphonbooks.com.

  RICHARD A. LUPOFF (“The Incident of the Impecunious Cavalier”) was introduced to the canon as a small child, when his older brother yielded to parental pressure and dragged him along to a motion picture matinee. The feature film was the 1939 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson. “I was terrified,” Lupoff recalls, “but I also fell in love with the characters and their world. And as for my debt to Poe, well, I can only quote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself: ‘Poe is, to my mind, the supreme short story writer of all time … . To him must be ascribed the monstrous progeny of writers on the detection of crime … . Each may find some little development of his own but his main art must trace back to those admirable stories of Monsieur Dupin, so wonderful in their masterful force, their reticence, their quick dramatic wit.’ In short, while Holmes may have failed to acknowledge his debt to his illustrious predecessor, Holmes’s creator did not so fail.” Lupoff is too modest to supply us with details of his writing career, but any reference work of science fiction or mystery authors will list his extensive and impressive professional biography. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his lovely wife, Patricia.

  MICHAEL MALLORY (“The Riddle of the Young Protester”) is author of some seventy short stories, including “Curiosity Kills,” which received a Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society for Best “Flash” Mystery Story of 1997. His short fiction
has appeared everywhere from Discovery Magazine, the inflight publication of Hong Kong Airlines, to Fox Kids Magazine. His Amelia Watson stories ran in every issue of Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine from 1995 to 2000. Twelve of them are collected in the book The Adventures of the Second Mrs Watson, published by Deadly Alibi Press, and one, “The Adventure of the Nefarious Nephew,” appears in The Mammoth Book of Legal Thrillers (Carroll & Graf). By day Mallory is a freelance entertainment journalist based in Los Angeles, with more than 250 magazine and newspaper articles to his credit. His most recent nonfiction book on American pop culture is Marvel: The Characters and Their Universe (Hugh Lauter Levin Associates). He is also dad to a rambunctious seven-year-old, and in his spare time plays the banjo, very badly.

  LINDA ROBERTSON (“Mrs. Hudson Reminisces”) is an attorney with the San Francisco—based California Appellate Project, a nonprofit law firm. She is beginning to build a second career as a writer, and has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, and the on-line magazine Salon, as well as the CACJ (California Attorneys for Criminal Justice) Forum. She is coauthor, along with Michael Kurland, of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Unsolved Mysteries but neither of them claims responsibility for the title. She lives in Petaluma, California, with three dogs, two cats, and a writer, and is not sure which of them is the most trouble to care for.

  NORMAN SCHREIBER (“Call Me Wiggins”) writes that he “chronicles life, liberty and the pursuit of demons in business, the arts, pop culture, travel photography and technology.” His writing credits include American Management Review, Amtrak Express, Camera Arts, Family Circle, Independent Business, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Ladies’ Home Journal, MultiMedia Pro, New Choices, Photo District News, Playboy, Popular Photography, Pulse, Smithsonian, Success, Travel & Leisure, and Writer’s Digest. Schreiber was the editor of the trade publication Magazine Retailer from its birth in 1996 through its last issue (Winter 2001—2002). His books include The Ultimata Guide to Independent Record Labels and Artists and Your Home Office. He has contributed material to Consumer Bible, The Complete Guide to Writing Nonfiction, and Digital Deli, among other publications. He makes his home in New York City and Key Largo, Florida.

  PETER TREMAYNE (“A Study in Orange”) is best known for his best-selling Sister Fidelma Mysteries, featuring as his sleuth a seventh-century Irish religieuse. Published in seven languages to date, the series is achieving a cult following and there is already an International Sister Fidelma Society based in the USA with an official Web site and magazine. Tremayne, a pseudonym, was born in Coventry, England, of Irish parents and took his degrees in Celtic Studies. His first book was published in 1968, the first of a number of nonfiction works about the Celts under his own name. He published his first Tremayne novel in 1977 and has produced many in the fantasy genre using Celtic myths and legends as background. In 1981 he published The Return of Raffles, a pastiche about the “gentleman thief.” This has also led to several Sherlock Holmes short story pastiches. In 1993 came the first appearance of his more enduring creation, Sister Fidelma, and the twelfth novel in the series appears in the UK this year. To date, Tremayne has produced a total of thirty-nine novels and seventy short stories, which have appeared in nearly a score of languages.

  Notes

  1

  We cannot find this quote among the translated works of the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, but perhaps Dr. Stamford has a different edition of his works, or perhaps he was thinking of a different Kierkegaard.—the Editors

  MY SHERLOCK HOLMES. Copyright © 2003 by Michael Kurland. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  eISBN 9781466826120

  First eBook Edition : June 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  My Sherlock Holmes: untold stories of the great detective/edited by Michael Kurland.—1st. ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-312-28093-9 (hc) ISBN 0-312-32595-9 (pbk)

  1. Detective and mystery stories, American. 2. Holmes, Sherlock (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Private investigators—England—Fiction. I. Kurland, Michael.

  PS648.D4 M8834 2003

  813’.087208351—dc21

  2002035664