From One White House to Another

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Herbert Hoover is one of only two US Presidents (John F. Kennedy was the other) who declined to accept pay for that job—a rather thankless one in Hoover’s case. His personal fortune and Quaker values made that choice possible. Was he heir to a life of wealth and privilege? Not at all. He was born in 1874 in the two-room Iowa cottage pictured and lived there with his parents and two siblings.

At age 9, Herb became an orphan, and family members took the children in, eventually sending him to an Uncle in Oregon. He traveled there by train, by himself, at age 11. The uncle was a lumberman, but also ran a Quaker school, which must have been a pretty good one, because, besides learning his uncle’s business, Herb was a member of the first class at the then-new Stanford University (now home of the Hoover Institution).

He studied geology, aiming toward a career as a mining engineer, met his to-be wife Lou (the first woman student in Stanford’s geology department), and eventually worked for a British mining company. Sent to Australia, he discovered a sizeable gold mine, which was the foundation of his personal fortune. He and Lou were living in China when the Boxer rebellion broke out, and she remembered sweeping the brass cartridge cases off the front porch every morning.

Hoover made his name in public service by helping Americans stranded in Europe at the start of World War I, then managing famine relief efforts in Europe after the war (and later after World War II). He relied on his own and others’ volunteerism, and a fundamental tenet of his personal philosophy was that, if you ask people to help, they will. Alas, this worked against him after he became President, just before the start of the Great Depression. Too many people were affected. His conviction that government’s role in relieving poverty should be minimal contributed greatly to his unpopularity, and for many years, the good things he accomplished were overlooked.

Hoover had a lifelong interest in the Boys’ Clubs of America, as Lou did with the Girl Scouts’ organization. I was surprised and glad to learn that there was more than I thought to his legacy; it’s a shame that a career of serving others is obscured by the dark shadow of the early 1930s and a financial catastrophe too big for him to manage.

On our recent Midwest trip, we visited West Branch, Iowa (just east of Iowa City), his boyhood home, where his Presidential Library and Museum are located, along with his birthplace cottage, gravesite, and other late-1800s buildings. Not on the beaten path, but well worth a visit.

Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case by Elsa Drucaroff

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Weary of US politics? How about a peek at the way other countries handle political disputes? Argentina, for example. In this historical “true crime” novel by Argentine novelist and literature professor Elsa Drucaroff, translated from the Spanish by Slava Faybysh, fact and fiction overlap, reinforce, and illuminate each other.

In real life, as in the novel, Rodolfo Walsh was a well-known Argentinian writer of detective fiction and an investigative journalist. His career started in the politically tumultuous 1950s and continued for the two succeeding decades. He joined a militant underground group, the Montoneros, allied with the Peronists (“Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”—that Peron family). The Montoneros appointed him their director of intelligence, and he was adept at ferreting out information to aid their cause. These activities and the militance of his daughter Maria Victoria (Vicki) made them regime targets. Walsh was eventually assassinated in 1977, the day after publishing his famously scathing Open Letter from a Writer to the Military Junta, criticizing its economic policies.

Drucaroff weaves her novel around these facts and a compelling “what if?” What if, using his skills as a writer of detective stories, Walsh investigated the disappearance of his 26-year-old daughter himself? She, along with four men, were involved in a shoot-out with army troops—tanks and helicopter included—but in Drucaroff’s story, he is tantalized by differing reports of the number of bodies removed from the building and whether the woman involved was still alive when she was taken away. He has to track down the facts.

You can see why Walsh might want to shift his interest away from the Montoneros, who are prone to lengthy debates on Marxist principles (I hadn’t heard the phrase “dialectical materialism” in, I don’t know, decades?), and engage in a little practical action.

There’s danger in the air, and Walsh and his key contacts go about their business in increasing peril. In politically fraught stories, peopled by spies and secret police, you can never be absolutely sure which side a character is on, and Drucaroff has some surprises in store.

Drucaroff writes in a particular style, providing limited visual description. To keep the story moving, she places greater reliance on the significance of interactions among characters and their dialog. And move it does. It’s written in short segments—sometimes only a page or two until the point of view changes. From the early political arguments, where the story stalls a bit, to its acceleration with her cinematic cutting back and forth, the pace soon hurtles toward its dramatic climax.

Not a must-read, but an interesting and memorable look at another corner of the world we hear relatively little about.

Cumberbatch or Brett? Brett or Cumberbatch? Or Rathbone?

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This series of posts about the stories in the recent collection, Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885, edited by Richard T. Ryan, published by Belanger Books, began by asking the story authors—and you, our Facebook friends—which is your favorite on-screen Holmes/Watson duo? I learned two things: Holmes fans have clear favorites, and their views are strongly held!

I started recording your votes on a small notepad and was soon using both sides of the sheet.

Garnering the most fans (about a third of the total) was the classic 36-episode Granada television series (1984-1994) starring Jeremy Brett, with equal votes to the Watsons of first David Burke, then Edward Hardwicke. Of course, fans did note Brett’s deteriorating performance as the series wore on, due to a series of psychological and medical problems.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman also garnered quite a few votes for the BBC Sherlock series—about a quarter of the total. People said they liked the modern energy of these productions, but I was disappointed to learn (thank you, gossip trade) that the two actors actually don’t like each other. Cumberbatch is the better known, of course, but, in a complete aside, if you want to see Freeman in one of my favorite short comedic films, The Voorman Problem, I think you’ll enjoy it.

There were almost as many votes for Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as for Cumberbatch and Freeman. Still, fans couldn’t help but scoff at the poor characterization of Watson. I suspect it wasn’t Bruce’s fault; he was probably hewing to the instructions of the director, who may have feared audiences wouldn’t understand how smart Holmes was without a dim Watson for contrast.

From here, we get into small numbers, five percent of the voting or so, but what’s surprising is how many portrayals loom so memorably in our minds! Downey and Law, Miller and Liu (with lots of pushback on this one. A bridge too far for some), Caine and Kingsley (Without a Clue), Ronald Howard and Howard Marion-Crawford (first American series, 1954), Peter Cushing and André Morell (The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1959), Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin (Soviet television, 1979-1986). I’ve never seen most of these—or heard of some of them!

And, finally, some respondents thought “on-screen” portrayals was altogether too limiting a construct and proposed Sir Kenneth Macmillan’s performance of both Holmes and Moriarty in the ballet The Great Detective (1953), or the Clive Merrison and Michael Williams BBC Radio versions (1989-1998), and William Gillette, who portrayed Holmes on stage and in a 1916 silent film. And the very favorite depiction for one Holmes fan was the portrayal created in his own book. No one mentioned the various musical versions, probably for good reason.

Contemporary writers, who, in the case of the anthology mentioned, do adhere closely to the canonical conventions, have enthusiastically created adventures to fill in the time gap in which almost none of Conan Doyle’s stories are set and the hundreds of film, television, radio, stage, and other portrayals of these enduring characters show there are many stories still to be had. Or, as Holmes himself said, “One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.” And contemporary writers continue to explore those limits. Enjoy!

Quad Cities Attractions

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Everyone knows what the big US cities are all about. But the country’s mid-sized towns also offer possibilities for tourists and aren’t so overwhelming. And there’s parking. We recently visited the Quad Cities—Davenport and Bettendorf ,Iowa, and Rock Island and the Molines in northwest Illinois—population 468,000. Whoever thought of going there? My husband.

We stayed two nights at the restored Hotel Blackhawk in Davenport—a 1915 gem (lobby ceiling pictured), beautifully restored and now one of Marriott’s autograph collection hotels. The restaurants were fine, not fabulous, the martini bar was fun, and the guest rooms had many little touches to make a guest’s stay more enjoyable. They were the epitome of “it’s the little things that count.”

Because of the cities’ size, they’re easy to get around in, but you have to cross the Mississippi River to travel from one state to the other. We wanted to see the Rock Island Arsenal and associated attractions which are entered from the Illinois side (GPS saved us) via the Moline Gate, and you have to get a military ID card at the Visitors Control Center—they check your criminal record, BTW. I guess we were “OK.” It’s the largest government-owned weapons manufacturing arsenal in the country and a National Historic Landmark. Both a National Cemetery and Confederate cemetery are there.

We knew the Rock Island Arsenal had been a major manufacturer of US arms and armaments in both World Wars up until today, but we hadn’t realized it’s also the home base of the First Army, so lots of barracks and military housing, as well as beautiful old stone buildings.

A Mississippi River visitor center is on the island, and that was our first stop. It’s smallish, with enthusiastic staff. It’s also well positioned, overlooking two locks (Locks and Dam #15) that help boat traffic navigate the changing depths of the river. There are 29 lock and dam structures along the upper Mississippi that maintain a 9-foot navigation channel, allowing boats of all kinds to travel from St. Paul, Minn., to St. Louis, Mo.—around a 400-foot drop. Below St. Louis the incoming water from the Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, and Arkansas rivers widen and deepen the Mississippi, and the lock are no longer necessary.

Nearby is a still-used, historical railway swing bridge, one section of which can pivot out of the way to allow taller boat traffic to pass beneath. (If the accompanying animation will work, you’ll see the bridge in action, as well as Mississippi barge traffic entering and leaving the locks.) The locks and dam structures are the province of the Army Corps of Engineers, which has a headquarters building on Rock Island. The building has a clock tower, built in 1867, and the clock isn’t working. Hmmmm. They should fix that. And, of course, you’re thinking of the Rock Island Line and Johnny Cash. The Rock Island Railway was so famous in its day it was Jesse James’s choice for his first robbery.

The museum, with the history of armaments (focusing on their manufacture) was well done and impressively large. You may be glad to know that the military is up-to-date with 3D printing, and at Rock Island it’s tested for use in creating spare parts no longer available or quickly needed tools and parts in the field, as well as lighter-weight gear. In the military, 3D printing is termed “additive manufacturing.” The museum takes pains to acknowledge the contributions to its history from Black Americans, who guarded its camp for Confederate prisoners, and women, who took on the manufacturing jobs when the men went overseas.

A great way to spend half a day! We skipped the botanical gardens (rain) and went to the art museum instead.

Take a Bow, Broadway!

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We’ve seen two stage musicals in the last month to take note of: The Outsiders and Days of Wine and Roses—both with fine pedigrees as movies, and, in the case of The Outsiders, the popular young adult book by SE Hinton.

The Outsiders

Playing at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, The Outsiders’ director, Danya Taymor, and her team brought together a terrific cast of young actors to play the teenage antagonists—the socs (pronounced sohsh, an abbreviation for “social,” denoting the teens from wealthier families) and the greasers (their opposites). Actor Brody Grant received a Tony nomination for his portrayal of Ponyboy Curtis, as did Joshua Boone and Sky Lakota-Lynch for their performances. It’s a coming-of-age crime story involving the perennial friction between those on the inside of a group and those not. The book and music were strong (both nominated for Tonys), and the high-energy choreography and fight choreography were spectacular.

I’d never read the book nor seen the 1983 Francis Ford Coppola movie (maybe you remember the amazing cast–Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, et al.), so it was all new to me. It received a too-tepid review in the Washington Post, in which the reviewer seemed troubled by the musical’s occasional divergence from the story’s previous two incarnations. No problem for me, of course. Nor for those who selected it as a nominee for a Tony Award for best musical, best direction, best book, best original score, and, no surprise—best choreography—this year! Among other nominations. Well worth seeing.

Days of Wine and Roses

Studio 54 has mounted a nicely staged production of The Days of Wine and Roses, based on the 1962 movie classic (Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, et al., directed by Blake Edwards). Directed by Michael Greif, the musical version stars Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James, both of whom received Tony nominations for their roles. This is O’Hara’s twelfth Broadway show, and she’s been nominated for seven Tony Awards (winning for The King and I), an Emmy, an Olivier, and two Grammys. Jones is a four-time Tony-nominated, Grammy-winning actor, also with more than a dozen Broadway appearances on his resume. Needless to say, they’re up to the musical demands.

You may recall the story. Farm-girl Kirsten Arnesen (O’Hara) is working in San Francisco and meets city slicker Joe Clay (James). He talks her into taking her first drink, and it’s all downhill from there. Since the pivotal role of brandy alexanders in the story is the main thing I remember about the movie, I can’t say how closely the musical tracks the film.

The sets are cleverly done for a smallish stage, and the book by Craig Lucas and music/lyrics by Adam Guettel are pretty good. In 90 minutes, no intermission, the cast has to take you through some dramatic and heart-wrenching falls. Byron Jennings does a memorable turn as Kirsten’s father too. It won’t leave you laughing, but it’s a fine show.

Geisha Confidential by Mark Coggins

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Mark Coggins’s new Tokyo-based crime novel, Geisha Confidential, features middle-aged San Francisco private investigator August Riordan, who may be familiar to you from previous books in this award-winning series. Read this fast-paced story, and you’ll barely have time to feel any trans-Pacific jet lag. Almost as soon as Riordan’s plane lands, trouble starts.

He’s made the trip for a personal reason. The last boyfriend of his dead former assistant has reached out to him for help, offering to pay Riordan’s airfare, hotel, and expenses. Riordan, who has never traveled outside the United States before and speaks no Japanese at all, is dubious about how much help he can provide, but goes out of loyalty to his late staff member.

The Japanese-American boyfriend, whom Riordan knew as Ken Ono, is certainly a surprise. She’s called Coco now—highly attractive, with long black hair, a mischievous smile, and a fondness for big straw hats. Coco is well into her gender transition; in the local slang, she’s a new-half prostitute.

That is precisely where the trouble may have started. Her doctor is a prominent Japanese gender reassignment surgeon, and his nurse warned Coco not to go through with her next operation. Ever since, Coco’s been followed and an attempt was made on her life. But the Tokyo police show complete disinterest in the troubles of a trans resident.

There’s quite a bit of solid humor in this story, given the inevitable cultural gaffes Riordan makes and Coco’s lighthearted spirit, despite the dangers. On the whole, it’s an interesting peek at the seamier side of Japanese culture—the Japanese Adult Video industry, high-end brothels, and the lifestyles of sex workers—in details sufficient to the story, but not too shocking.

Riordan is a well-developed, crusty character, and Coco is a delight. She recognizes the danger she’s in, but she’s not backing down easily. I was intrigued by the police sergeant named Miyojima, exiled to a lowly outpost due to some bureaucratic flap. He and Riordan are both prone to bend a few rules, and they click.

Author Coggins is an accomplished photographer whose work has appeared in numerous galleries and exhibits and reveals itself in his eye for descriptive detail. His descriptions convey an intimate knowledge of the city that makes this wild and wacky story quite believable. It begins with the story of Hachiko, the loyal dog who waited outside a Tokyo train station for his dead master for more than nine years. A statue now commemorates his devotion.

One request of authors who write books with lots of characters in a complicated story: include a list of them. Particularly when their names are culturally different from what readers are accustomed to, it can become hard to keep track of who’s who—at least for me! Bottom line: a winner!

Why Does Sherlock Holmes Endure?

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For the past few weeks, I’ve reported here the thoughts of some of today’s leading authors of Sherlock efforts to reproduce his world. These authors care passionately about the Holmes/Watson legacy. They demonstrated this through their contributions to the anthology, Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885, edited by Richard T. Ryan. It’s one of a series filling in the years 1881-1886, when almost no Holmes cases were reported. Contemporary writers, not content to assume the duo temporarily retired during that period, have enthusiastically created adventures to fill in the gap.

One last question I asked them was why Holmes and Watson have had such enduring reader appeal. (People who’ve seen these posts in social media have also weighed in on this question!) Author DJ Tyrer says that, for him, the attraction lies in the rapport between Holmes and Watson. Shelby Phoenix terms it their “genuine fondness for each other.” Tyrer says “There’s a depth to their relationship, their friendship, and their investigative partnership that is more than the sum of its parts.”

George Jacobs says that friendship helps anchor the sometimes aloof and calculating Holmes—“ultimately unknowable” says Katy Darby. Yet, Jacobs says, they’re both very likeable heroes, with Watson “the classic everyman,” so brave and loyal readers keep rooting for him, and with Holmes’s strong sense of morality—even when it contradicts that law or social convention. As Paul Hiscock points out, literature has many great detectives, but far fewer memorable sidekicks. “Readers can respect Watson, just as Holmes does. His relatability allows Holmes to be exceptional without alienating the reader.” (The duo of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock comes to mind.) Frequent Holmes/Watson pasticher David Marcum finds the pairing an “amazing narrative device to show a brilliant person—someone always two steps ahead of what’s going on—from the perspective of the everyman narrator.”

Add to all that the strength of Doyle’s writing, especially his characterizations, says Hassan Akram: “His characters live and breathe.” Also, Doyle focuses on the crime, Phoenix points out, not on tension and distrust between characters, as many writers do today. Darby points out that, because the stories “are easy and fun to read, they’re often underestimated as the highly skilled work they are,” in terms of plot, action, and character development.

Author George Gardner believes that our continued exposure to these personalities and their world has made the stories “readily imaginable to the reader.” We instantly recognize the names of Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and Baker Street, but they are remote enough in time to give “an air of the fantastic to the stories.” Holmes is “the epitome of a detective” for many, many people, says Gustavo Bondoni, and readers have found his fog-covered streets a most evocative time and place. Even people who read his adventures in the World War I trenches, like Kevin Thornton’s grandfather, eagerly introduced them to later generations.

Developing and writing a story in the late-Victorian London setting, “is even more immersive than reading one,” says Akram. So, let’s see how he did with his story, generously larded with wry wit, “The Return of the Buckinghamshire Baronet.”

Here goes: A partially burned telegram is a clue to the distant town where Holmes believes a bank robber has hidden his loot. Holmes and Watson’s old acquaintance, a Baronet, lives there and is about to be married. He appears at Baker Street with the astonishing proposal that Holmes perform his “deducing” act at the wedding. (Holmes, not surprisingly, declines.) Still, the Baronet offers a week’s invitation to stay at his manor house before the ceremony, and there, another species of financial pandemonium soon erupts.

I asked Akram about his use of humor in this story, and he thinks “it’s more difficult to use humor to good effect when the characters are so familiar.” Thus, most of his story’s humor comes from their slightly dim friend and other minor characters. The personas of Holmes and Watson having reached “almost mythical” status, he says, requires that they be treated with complete respect. Doyle’s own sense of the absurd “has been underrated in the face of his more serious elements, though it’s clearly visible in a story like ‘The Red-Headed League,’ when Holmes and Watson burst into laughter on hearing the client’s story.”

The popularity of Holmes and Watson endures, regularly refreshed by the work of the authors mentioned above. Their stories in Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885 are:
D.J. Tyrer – “The Japanese Village Mystery”
Shelby Phoenix – “Sherlock Holmes and the Six-Fingered Hand Print”
George Jacobs – “The Mystery of the Cloven Cord”
Katy Darby – “The Adventure of the Lock Hospital”
Paul Hiscock – “The Light of Liberty”
David Marcum – “The Faulty Gallows”
George Gardner – “The Adventure of the Damaged Tomb”
Gustavo Bondoni – “The Burning Mania”
Kevin Thornton – “Tracks Across Canada” and “Tracked Across America”

Beware of Foreign Entanglements!

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While Victorian society often seems hidebound, clinging to a certain worldview (British is best), previous posts in this series have talked about how rapidly the world, and that world specifically, was changing. Travel was speeding up, the telegraph had been invented, laws were changing, and many Britishers had visited the Empire’s far corners, or, as in Katy Darby’s story, had served in the Army there. Of course, that wasn’t the only way Victorians learned about the rest of the world—it also came to them, for better or worse. In Belanger Books’s entertaining volume Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885, edited by Richard Ryan, contemporary authors look at any number of external influences on Holmes’s milieu.

These external forces are all the more consequential because, as George Gardner maintains, “no other historical period is so iconic and fully-formed in the mind of both reader and writer.” Or, as author Kevin Thornton put it, “with a Holmes story, there is no need for back story, to explain who the characters are, what they do, and what the story is about. It’s all there as soon as you mention Sherlock or 221B.” A situation ready-made for exciting surprises.

Certainly, it takes a vivid imagination to figure out how such well-known characters would have reacted to the era’s untoward events, like the Irish separatists’ bombings. Gardner’s story has Watson “jumping at shadows,” but Holmes takes a more measured view, seeming to believe “the hysteria and fear around the Fenian bombers were a larger threat than the bombings themselves.” Another example is in Shelby Phoenix’s story, which involves a shop selling Japanese pottery, “actually pretty popular back in Victorian England,” she says. Bringing goods to England for sale inspired her malefactor to do the same with people.

“While we often picture Holmes and Watson living in a generic Victorian London, the Year of Mystery concept has encouraged me to think about their place in history—about a series of unexpected events that could have happened in the existing historical context,” says author Paul Hiscock.

Here are two stories that exemplify the cross-cultural influences of the time.

“The Mystery of the Cloven Cord” by George Jacobs begins with a visit from Scotland Yard Inspector Gregson, who is bearing an unusual scarf. Cut in half and rolled like a rope, it was abandoned at the scene of an attempted murder. A similar scarf was left at a recent break-in. The victims heard a Bengali dialect. Holmes and Watson soon find themselves in the middle of a foreign intrigue in which miscreants looked to the Thuggees—“bandits and murderers who would roam India, killing and robbing travelers”—for inspiration and had brought their methods to England.

In 1885, hundreds thousands of Britishers visited a major exhibition of Japanese art and culture, which burned to the ground a few days before DJ Tyrer’s story, “The Japanese Village Mystery,” opens. Holmes and Watson become involved when the Village’s proprietor approaches them within days of the fire, fearful he’ll be charged with arson. Watson is called away from this meeting to visit his patient, WS Gilbert (who, in real life, engaged a Village tea server to coach his “three little maids” for The Mikado). Gilbert has been attacked by a black-clad man with a Japanese sword. A similar man is seen combing through the exhibition ruins, and the proprietor insists the man is “a member of that sect of assassins known as the Shinobi.” Once again, foreign entanglements have a dangerous side!

The authors mentioned herein cleverly use foreign influences and experiences to increase the intrigue in Holmes’s world. Their stories in Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885 are:
Katy Darby – “The Adventure of the Lock Hospital”
George Gardner – “The Adventure of the Damaged Tomb”
Kevin Thornton – “Tracks Across Canada” and “Tracked Across America”
Paul Hiscock – “The Light of Liberty”
Shelby Phoenix – “Sherlock Holmes and the Six-Fingered Hand Print”

Sherlock Holmes: Master of Disguise

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Contemporary writers of Sherlock Holmes pastiches take inspiration from real events and characters, as well as having occasional fun with familiar Holmes tropes. In the entertaining volume Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885, published late last year by Belanger Books, editor Richard Ryan included several stories in which Holmes capitalized on his considerable talent for disguise.

Here’s what some of the anthology’s authors say about that particular aspect of Holmes stories

“The ‘manic,’ childlike energy of Holmes’s disguises—particularly those in A Scandal in Bohemia or The Hound of the Baskervilles—is an oft-overlooked part of his character. Holmes is often seen as sober and serious, so I wanted to explore a different side of him,” says George Gardner.

Gustavo Bondoni said Holmes’s disguises let the detective mix and mingle with all classes of people, bringing him “out of the drawing room and into the world.” In my stories in which Holmes takes on a disguise, I deploy it for humor, as well as information-gathering. Poor Watson, poor Lestrade! They never recognize him. But the Irregulars? Not fooled for a minute. In another clever twist, in Katy Darby’s story, Watson, not Holmes, is the one getting to act for a change, when he impersonates the Lock Hospital Inspector Q. Forrest? Luckily the head surgeon who meets him is rather short-sighted … !

“A frail and twisted old man” with “rather strange personal grooming” appears in George Jacobs’s story, revealing himself to Watson in time to participate in a very interesting interview with a trio of Bengalis seeking justice. And in a Kevin Thornton story, an Irish navvy appears, “looking for all the world like he’d just finished a shift on the docks,” fooling Holmes’s astonished client, but this time, not Watson, who had guessed what Holmes was up to.

Let’s look at how two of these clever stories handle disguises:

Gustavo Bondoni’s story, “The Burning Mania,” takes a cue from two significant events of 1885: a new law permitting the operation of crematoria and the Irish bombings in various London locations. Lestrade asks Holmes to investigate the recent disappearances of eight criminal gang members very possibly linked to the bombings.

As they track the culprits, Watson says this about Holmes and disguises: “I always felt more comfortable when he did that”—a consideration as Holmes’s growing notoriety increases the possibility of recognition. Later, Watson acknowledges that, even without different hair or clothing, Holmes “could become completely unrecognizable in moments by changing the way he looked or even his personality,” persuading others “to see him as something different from what he was.” An insightful comment from the good doctor.

In “The Adventure of the Damaged Tomb,” George Gardner’s story, he similarly refers to heightened public alarm after the Fenian Bombings, so when Hamworth’s Catholic church of St. Mary’s is attacked with dynamite, severely damaging the ancient tomb of the Mountfalcon family, assumptions are made. In their lodgings one day, Watson nervously encounters “a heavy-set, red-haired man of about fifty,” with the “distinctive twang that categorized him with the Irish-American set.” Another disguise success!

The authors mentioned above used disguises to good effect in their stories in Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885. Their stories are:
George Gardner – “The Adventure of the Damaged Tomb”
Gustavo Bondoni – “The Burning Mania”
Victoria Weisfeld – “A Brick Through the Window”
Katy Darby – “The Adventure of the Lock Hospital”
George Jacobs – “The Mystery of the Cloven Cord”
Kevin Thornton – “Tracks Across Canada”

Rules Made to be Broken

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Only recently did I hear about Ronald Knox’s 10 Commandments of Detective Fiction, penned about a century ago. How much times have changed! Knox was undoubtedly attracted to the “10 Commandments” idea because he was a Catholic priest, but he also was a mystery writer who clubbed with notable mystery writers of his day. Below are his rules, and for many of them, I—and you, too—can think of entertaining exceptions! (Mine in parentheses.)

In contrast with the man pictured at left, who may feel his interpretation of the rules brooks no disagreement, we can see a lot of room for nuance here!

  1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow. (This leaves out the whole multiple point-of-view serial killer subgenre, but I will confess that, while multiple points of view don’t bother me, I don’t enjoy it when one of those viewpoints belongs to a predatory character. Creeps me out.)
  2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course. (So much for another whole category of thriller that agents and publishers today say they’re looking for, and books like Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes. Someone forgot to tell Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Shirley Jackson about this, for three.)
  3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable. (Hmm.)
  4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end. (Agree. Sounds like cheating and very possibly boring.)
  5. No Chinaman must figure in the story. (Yet one of my favorite detective quotes comes from Charlie Chan: “Theory like mist on eyeglasses. Obscures vision.” And this leaves out my all-time favorite detective, Judge Dee Goong An, in the novels by Robert Van Gulik. And S.J. Rozan!) The rule probably came about because a “Chinaman” had been overused as a sinister character, Fu Manchu moustache and all.
  6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he (!) ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right. (This rule lives on in objections to plot coincidences. They are annoying.)
  7. The detective must not himself commit the crime. (Omitting a whole category of cops-gone-wrong and unreliable narrators. Tricky.)
  8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader. (Did you ever have a “what just happened?” moment while reading? That’s sometimes because you didn’t see—or weren’t shown—the clue. Agree, it’s bad when this occurs.)
  9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader. (I object! Nigel Bruce’s characterization of Watson in the old movies was bumbling, but Watson is far from stupid. And what does that say about the “average reader”?)
  10. Twin brothers (what about twin sisters, huh?), and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them. (Twins are a problem. But can move beyond clichéd mix-ups into unexpected territory, as in award-winning Japanese novelist Riku Onda’s fascinating mystery, Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight).