Sherlock Holmes
Vanishing shorts
Two weeks from today, on Feb 1, a number of my e-short stories will be coming down, vanishing, going underground (except, of course, if they’re already on your reader.) These stories won’t be for sale again until Random House publishes my collection of Russell & Holmes tales in October (as an ebook, though possibly, eventually,…
Read MoreThe next Klinger/King!
Echoes of Sherlock Holmes will be out in September–just in time for BoucherCon! We have a remarkable set of contributors for this, the third collection of “stories inspired by the Holmes canon” that Les Klinger and I have put together. Gorgeous cover, too–and just drool over those names: I’ll let you know when the book…
Read MoreMary Russell, meet Sherlock Holmes
Team LRK has a new video for you, based on a piece of prose you may recognize: “I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes…”
Read MoreResearch and other addictions
I love research. It’s addictive, in fact, and can threaten the actual writing of the book unless one develops a stern attitude towards the Siren call of the shelves—or, for those wired that way, of the Internet. In The Murder of Mary Russell, the past holds the answer to the present’s questions, which means I…
Read MoreBoucher’s Con
As you probably know, every year the Crime World [Fictional Division] gathers to discuss pretty much everything to do with crime & mystery books: from character development to social media, e-books to Hollywood. The conference is named after the editor/reviewer/writer Anthony Boucher and this was Bouchercon’s 46th year. We met in Raleigh, and the fun began.…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War
One hundred years ago, the armies in Europe were locked head to head all along a line from the North Sea to Switzerland. In the past twelve months, hundreds of thousands had fallen, soldiers and civilians alike. An entire swath of Europe lay devastated, the technology of War was building. And Mary Russell met Sherlock…
Read MoreRussell’s War
Last year on the centenary of the Great War’s beginnings,I began posting young Mary Russell’s War Journal. Her weekly reflections about the War, her drive to do something more than just be a fourteen year-old girl, (her mother is raising money for the British air force) and her suspicions about German spies weave in and…
Read MoreMr Holmes
Today I did another of those bits of difficult research I force myself to pursue: I went to see Ian McKellan in Mr Holmes. Oh my, what an actor, slipping effortlessly between a vital 60 year old and a decrepit and confused man in his nineties. And the Sussex scenery is suitably gorgeous, the houses…
Read MoreBBC Beekeeper
Several years ago, BBC Radio 4 did an adaptation of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. If you don’t know Radio Four, this is the radio station that covers not music, but the word: dramas, comedies, in-depth reports on news and history, it’s a genius source of wit and wisdom the like of which does not really exist in…
Read MoreSheep; gorse: Sussex
I spent a few days in Sussex recently, and… In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading amongst the sheep (which tended to move out of my way) and the gorse bushes (to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness) I had never before stepped on a person…
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