Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(120)

DENISE MINA has long been slightly obsessed by Joseph Bell, Doyle’s inspiration for the character of Sherlock Holmes. She studied and lives in Glasgow, a hop, skip and a jump from Edinburgh Medical School, where Bell taught his systematic reasoned deductions to Doyle himself. When not being a tedious pedant herself, she is the author of seven graphic novels, including the DC Comics adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy.” In her spare time she is the author of thirteen novels. Her first, Garnethill, won the CWA John Creasy Award for Best First Novel and the Spirit of Scotland Award. She is the author of the Paddy Meehan series, the second of which, The Dead Hour, was short listed for the Edgar?. The Paddy Meehan books have been brilliantly adapted for BBC Drama starring Peter Capaldi and David Morrissy. The Alex Morrow Series began with Still Midnight and includes the multi-award-winning End of the Wasp Season as well as her current book, Blood Salt Water. If you can bear to find out any more, her web site is www.denisemina.com. She whitters on Twitter at @DameDeniseMina.

DAVID MORRELL can’t remember a time when Sherlock Holmes wasn’t part of his imaginative DNA. Writing “The Spiritualist” gave him a wonderful impetus to re-read the Holmes Canon and re-enter the dizzying Great Game. A former literature professor at the University of Iowa, Morrell created the character of Rambo in his debut novel, First Blood. His numerous New York Times bestsellers include the classic spy novel The Brotherhood of the Rose, the basis for the only TV miniseries to be broadcast after a Super Bowl. An Edgar? and Anthony finalist, a Nero and Macavity winner, Morrell is a recipient of three Bram Stoker Awards? and the Thriller Master award from the International Thriller Writers organization. His latest novels are the Victorian mystery/thrillers Murder as a Fine Art and Inspector of the Dead. Visit him at www.davidmorrell.net.

BEVIS MUSSON claims that he never heard of Sherlock Holmes before drawing Mrs. Hudson Investigates, which probably explains a lot—although he seems to know a lot about Basil The Great Mouse Detective. He hopes that he got all the details and references correct but is sure that no one will think anything out of place. He is the artist on Knight & Dragon from Improper Books and is the writer and artist of The Dead Queen Detectives. His one wish in life would be that people stop getting him to draw stories that have horses in them. Find out more at http://bevismusson.deviantart.com/.

ANNE PERRY has published over eighty books. Fifty-three of them feature either Inspector Thomas Pitt, first of Bow Street, then of Special Branch, or Commander William Monk, lately of the Thames River Police. They, plus several short stories, are all mysteries set in Victorian London, and so it is hardly surprising that she was influenced by Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The invitation to join in this collection was irresistible. Her story “Raffa” is dedicated to her friend Kira Gangi. www.anneperry.co.uk/books Still on GARY PHILLIPS’s shelf is a book his aunt gave him decades ago called Conan Doyle Stories: Six Notable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Platt & Munk, Publishers. At nine or ten he read A Study in Scarlet and was hooked. Further cementing his fascination with the character, Phillips fondly recalls those Sunday afternoons in high school when he and his dad would watch the Rathbone-Bruce interpretations on Channel 9. Other recent work includes “The Two Falcons” in the Highway Kind, Stories of Cars and Crime, and a second Decimator Smith story in Black Pulp II, and comics miniseries for Hard Case Crime and DC Comics. Please drop by his website at www.gdphillips.com for further goings-on.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN’s parents tell the story of the Black Hole of Time, when their eldest daughter disappeared into the hayloft of the barn behind their home. Turned out thirteen-year-old Hank had settled in to read the entire volume of the Christopher Morley edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Afterward, briefly, she communicated only in the code she learned in “The Adventure of the Dancing Men.” She also vowed to become a detective herself, solving crimes and catching bad guys. Hank kept her vow, in her own way, and is now the winner of thirty-three Emmy? Awards for investigative reporting at Boston’s NBC affiliate, where she is still on the air. After adding fiction to her resume, Ryan, author of eight mystery novels, has won five Agatha Awards, two Anthony Awards, two Macavitys, and, for The Other Woman, the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her newest novel, What You See, which national reviewers have called “superbly entertaining” and “a perfect thriller,” is a Library Journal Best of 2015. Though she no longer writes in code, Hank has actually read a portion of Edward Hitchcock’s 1841 tome Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts, but only enough to matter. www.hankphillippiryan.com MICHAEL SCOTT is the New York Times bestselling author of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. Published in thirty-seven countries and twenty-five languages, he is one of Ireland’s most successful and prolific authors, with over one hundred titles to his credit. He grew up in a book-filled house where nothing was off-limits—except the very top shelf which held his father’s almost complete collection of Strand Magazines. However, a chair on top of a table gave him access to the world of Holmes and Watson. He got so caught up in reading The Hound of the Baskervilles that he fell off the chair and broke his wrist. Luckily, the magazine was unharmed. Later, a long career as an antiquarian bookseller allowed him to add to the collection, though it is still not quite complete. He spent the best part of a decade researching the events surrounding the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. Conan Doyle himself borrowed elements from the story for “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans.” All the revelations in the short story are based on fact because truth is always stranger than fiction. His website is www.dillonscott.com.