Wed 29 Mar 2006
FROM Shelly Shepherd Klaner at the Santa Rosa (California) newspaper The Press Democrat comes an interesting look at two of the current kings of Sherlockian pastiche, Two mystery scribes at home with Holmes - Despite their differences, writers say it’s elementary, dear reader - they were destined to meet:
Arthur Conan Doyle himself couldn’t have foreseen the serendipitous meeting of two Petaluma mystery writers, both of whom use Sherlock Holmes in their new novels.
Michael Kurland and Steve Hockensmith are 30 years apart in age and seemingly as different as Felix and Oscar from “The Odd Couple.”
Kurland sports a list of published books on a canon several pages long; Hockensmith is excited about the release of his first novel.
Kurland used to be a stand-up comic; Hockensmith made his living as an entertainment reporter and even spent a year as the editor of X-Files magazine.
Along the way, Hockensmith, 37, interviewed Kurland, 67, for an article about the longevity of Sherlock Holmes.
The new novels in question are, of course, Michael Kurland’s The Empress of India : A Professor Moriarty Novel and Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range.
One Response to “Press Democrat: Two mystery scribes at home with Holmes”
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April 11th, 2006 at 3:26 am
I recently finished reading “The Infernal Device” the first in the Kurland Moriarty series. Not that I only just discovered it. It’s been sitting in a dreaded place in my collection for many years now. I found it to be well written and entertaining. Among one of the better pastiches in fact.
But but but.
What is the point of making Moriarty a good guy and Holmes a bit of a fool?
I could almost take the one but not the other……
I can see it maybe as a one off. But a whole series?
No doubt Kurland’s a good writer. And his turn as editor of “My Sherlock Holmes”
produced some excellent work (although not so much the sequel as is usually the case). But but but I can’t help but think. What does he have against Holmes? Why go to so much trouble to attenuate the character that Doyle so perfectly designed.
Why bother to write a pastiche? Who of us would want to read this? After all it is Sherlockians who buy this stuff.
In desperation I will probably eventually work my way through the entire series. But why? Why?