Literary Contributions by Sherlockains

Original water color illustration for Art in the Blood, 2015. With interpretative panel designed by MacBird.

Bonnie MacBird and Art in the Blood

After a long career in Hollywood, Bonnie MacBird turned her love of Sherlock Holmes into a career as a novelist. Her Art in the Blood, a classic Sherlock Holmes pastiche, was published in 2015. Her third Holmes book, The Devil’s Due, came out last month. MacBird is also an accomplished artist.

Shown below is her watercolor illustration for Art in the Blood. 

Nicholas Meyer. The Seven Percent Solution, Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. New York: Ballantine Books, 1974.
From the collection of the Mystery Writers of America.

Nicholas Meyer

The Seven Percent Solution

Nicholas Meyer’s novel, The Seven Percent Solution, spent 40 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 1974 and 1975. It was made into a film in 1976. In Meyer’s tale Holmes meets Sigmund Freud, and the plot of the book largely revolves around a Freudian analysis of the famous detective.

Nicholas Meyer. "The West End Horror," in Playboy, April 1976.

"West End Horror," Playboy 

Meyer published two more pastiches, The West End Horror (a portion published in Playboy is shown here) and The Canary Trainer. Meyer was invested as member of the BSI in 2004.

Kingsley Amis. The Darkwater Hall Mystery. Illustrations by Elspeth Sojka. Edinburgh: Tragara Press, 1978.

Kingsley Amis

The Darkwater Hall Mystery

Prolific British writer Kingsley Amis is best known for his first book, Lucky Jim. The Darkwater Hall Mystery was first published in Playboy magazine, then in this limited edition book. It is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche in which Holmes is mostly absent. Watson investigates instead.

Carole Nelson Douglas. Good Night, Mr. Holmes. New York: T. Doherty Associates, 1991.

Carole Nelson Douglas

Good Night, Mr. Holmes

Carole Nelson Douglas took Irene Adler as her main subject in this first of eight novels featuring on Adler as the protagonist and investigator. In the Sherlockian canon, Adler appears once in the tale “A Scandal in Bohemia,” but seems to captivate Holmes who refers to her as “the woman.” In the Irene Adler series, Sherlock Holmes appears as a supporting character only.

Laurie R. King. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, or, On the Segregation of the Queen. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. From the collection of the Mystery Writers of America. Signed by the author.

Laurie R. King

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

Laurie R. King’s The Beekeeper’s Apprentice made a big splash when it was published 25 years ago. It was nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Novel by Malice Domestic, Ltd., and named a notable young adult book by the American Library Association.

Its appeal is clearly not limited to young people, however. The remarkable young woman Mary Russell, whose mind rivals that of Holmes, has fans of all ages. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice has been in print for 25 years, and the next Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes novel is due in 2020.

The images below display a letter from Ruth Caven, King’s editor at St. Martin’s Press, and four pages from the original typescript of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.