Since A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887, fans have been writing new mysteries featuring Sherlock Holmes. In today’s episode, Brook and Sarah discuss the different ways that authors have paid homage to this sleuth.
Production note: We ran into technology issues and Brook’s sound isn’t as crisp as usual.
Discussed and mentioned
Sherlock (2010-2017) BBC series
Watson (2025) CBS series
Elementary (2012-2019) CBS series
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994) Laurie R. King
The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes (series) Leonard Goldberg
Sherlock and Lucy (series) Charles Veley and Anna Elliott
Sherlock & Daughter (2025) CW series
Sherlock Holmes Bookshop (series) Vicki Delany
Enola Holmes (series) Nancy Springer
Adventures of Sherlock Bones (series) Tim Collins and John Bigwood
Sherlock Holmes Escape Book (series) Ormond Sacker, Charles Phillips, Melanie Frances
Related episodes
Arthur Conan Doyle (part 1) released March 22, 2022
Arthur Conan Doyle (part 2) released March 29, 2022
Arthur Conan Doyle (part 3) released April 5, 2022
For more information
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Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
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Pre-order Life or Delft by Brook and Sarah
Transcript
This transcript is generated by a computer and there may be some mis-spellings and strange punctuation. We try to catch these before posting, but some things slip through.
| Sarah | Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I’m Sarah. |
| Brook | And I’m Brook, and we both love mystery. |
| Sarah | Hi Brook. |
| Brook | Hi Sarah, today we have a really fun topic, but before we get started, should we tell everyone about some exciting news we have coming this fall? |
| Sarah | That’s right. Our first collaborative mystery is available for pre-order. It will be coming out later this year in November. |
| Sarah | We just shared the cover with subscribers to the Clued in Chronicle and our social media folks as well I think I’ve seen a hint of the cover as well. |
| Brook | That’s right. So, make sure that you subscribe that newsletter and follow us so that you can stay clued in. But we’re both really excited and we can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks of our first collaborative project. |
| Brook | But today we’re going to turn our attention to some more Sherlock Holmes. In previous seasons of Clued in Mystery, we’ve devoted a three-part series to Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, exploring not only the origins of the great detective, but also the many ways the stories have been continued over the years. |
| Brook | Since then, we’ve mentioned Holmes many times because his impact on our favorite genre is so instrumental. |
| Brook | So is there any more to explore? The answer is “yes,” and probably will always be “yes”. Sherlock Holmes may be more than a century old, but his world is constantly being reinvented. |
| Brook | Writers and creators keep asking, “what if?” What if Holmes had descendants? What if he had a sister or a protege, or even found himself solving crimes in the 21st century? |
| Brook | These reimaginings expand the Sherlockian universe in fresh directions while hopefully keeping the essence of the detective we know and love, like his razor sharp observation skills, his deductive brilliance, and his eccentricity. |
| Brook | Today we’ll look at some intriguing takes on Sherlock Holmes and discuss the pros and maybe the cons of expanding the classic canon. |
| Sarah | Thank you, Brook. I agree. I think there’s probably always something more to say about Sherlock Holmes. And so, it has been a while since we’ve done an episode strictly about him, so I think it’s it’s definitely time to revisit. |
| Brook | That’s right. So, I think that, you know, as I said, there are these “what ifs” that writers, we just can’t really resist from wondering, especially for these larger than life characters such as Sherlock Holmes. |
| Brook | I do think that in thinking about this this week, there are advantages and there are disadvantages. We can talk about those. But I think we need to remember that anyone who takes this on as a project is really doing it out of love you know, for the genre, love for the character of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle’s work. |
| Brook | And I think we need to keep that in mind because sometimes it is criticized for maybe expanding in directions that some people don’t like. But, at the end of the day, it’s because we love mystery or these writers love mystery that they’re doing this. Don’t you agree? |
| Sarah | I agree 100 percent, Brook. I think it’s, as you said in the beginning, this character has had such an impact on the genre. And I think people want to acknowledge that and and play with it. And you are absolutely correct when you say it’s that, that starting from that point of what if, right? What if he had a child or a niece or a wife, right? |
| Sarah | Like, you know, keeping it, um, set around the time that the original stories were set. |
| Sarah | And you mentioned, you know, what if he was solving solving crimes in the 21st century? And I love that idea, right, of putting him in present day. It allows readers and and viewers to connect with him in a different way, because that’s what the BBC’s Sherlock the the films that they did with Benedict Cumberbatch as as Sherlock, they were set in present day. And so we got to see how his investigating may be influenced by the technology that we have available now. |
| Brook | Exactly. Yeah. So looking at some of those that are set in present day and, you know, reimagining that way. That BBC production is probably the that most well-known and with the largest reach, huge stars in it and everything. |
| Brook | And I also think that it did a great job of keeping the Sherlock character as written by Arthur Conan Doyle pretty consistent. He’s definitely a little bit off-putting. |
| Brook | He believes himself to be the smartest person in the room, ah kind of sticks to himself. Like all of these things feel very much like the Sherlock in the original stories, to me at least. |
| Sarah | There have been some more recent screen treatments of Sherlock, I think in present day environments as well. |
| Brook | Right. Really new is Watson, which of course is more following along with Dr. Watson. um And that’s one that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet, but it looks fantastic. |
| Brook | As well as Elementary, which was very popular. |
| Sarah | Yeah, that’s right. I haven’t seen Watson either um because I think it’s on one of the streaming services that I i don’t have. |
| Sarah | But it does look it does look really good. And yeah, Elementary was um was quite fun as well. If you think about books that I’ve read that kind of reimagine Sherlock. I think of Laurie R. King’s series that started in 1994 with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, where it’s set, I think that book is set in 1915, but the series progresses. And, um you know, I read one that was, I think, in like 19—, early 1920s let’s say it was, it was shortly after the war had ended. |
| Sarah | And what I liked about that was that I found it easier to connect with Sherlock because the world that he was in was a little bit more familiar than the world of the original stories, right? The late 19th century. It just felt a little bit, a little bit more familiar. Yeah. |
| Brook | Yeah, I like that. And also that we still have the original Sherlock character, but in kind of a different stage in his life. He’s mentoring, this is the protege, what at what if, he’s mentoring Mary Russell. |
| Sarah | Mm-hmm. |
| Brook | It kind of acts as a bridge between the original stories and then maybe some of these later ones that we’re gonna talk about. I think all of those that we mentioned, keep to pretty safe territory. I mean, maybe true Sherlockians still don’t love these 21st century Sherlocks, but I think that it’s a little bit safer than the idea that “what if Sherlock had children?”. |
| Brook | Because that really pushes that personality a little bit. And some of the examples of that include, Leonard Goldberg’s The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes series. There are many books in this, and he writes about Joanna Blalock, who is Sherlock’s daughter, and married to Watson’s son. |
| Brook | So it creates just an entirely like second generation. Even the dog Toby has Toby 2. It definitely carries on lots of the characters. |
| Brook | But then we also have ah Charles Veley and Anna Elliot who write the Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James series. Again, we have Sherlock Holmes with a with a daughter. |
| Brook | I think that some people really enjoy this reimagining, but others might have a hard time with the idea of Holmes, who really feel like he’s pretty asexual or at least aromantic, having children. |
| Brook | How do you feel about this, Sarah? |
| Sarah | Yeah, I mean, it definitely is a departure from the original character who quite honestly needs to be parented by Watson in a lot of ways. So, it’s kind of hard to imagine him being a parent himself. |
| Sarah | So I can see why people would be a little less excited about seeing him in that kind of a role. But as you said earlier, I think it speaks to the love that people have for this character that they want for him to have had this richer family life and to have this, um, extension of him through his, his children. |
| Sarah | Right. Right. |
| Brook | Yeah, right. I agree. I agree that there are some really endearing things about it. I will say that in both of those series I mentioned, he has been an absent father, which wouldn’t surprise us. Like he doesn’t find out until much later when these two women are grown that he has fathered them. |
| Brook | I think the idea that Charles Veely and Anna Elliott proposed, which is that Sherlock had, um way the way I interpret it in the books is kind of a long-term secret relationship with Irene Adler that results in this daughter makes a lot more sense than, let’s say, the new CW production, which is called Sherlock and Daughter. I’ve been watching that recently. and In episode one, Sherlock actually tells the girl who shows up and thinks that she’s his daughter that, “well, there are lots of people who can claim that I’m their father.” |
| Brook | And I just had to chuckle because I was like, I don’t see Sherlock as a carouser. |
| Sarah | No, no, that doesn’t, that doesn’t fit with my picture of him either. So Brook, I haven’t been watching this series. Is it set in modern day or set in um the Victorian, late 19th century? |
| Brook | Yeah, it’s set in the Victorian era. ah um In this setup, Sherlock has apparently at one of his many flings was with a Native American woman who came to England for one of the Wild West shows that often took place there. And um then she went back to the United States. She’s been murdered. And now this daughter has gone to find Sherlock to solve her mother’s murder. And she’s also inherited her father’s deduction skills. And so she’s helping him solve other cases. |
| Brook | It’s a fun series, but I understand why true staunch Sherlockians might have a big problem with it. |
| Sarah | So maybe people have less of a problem with someone who’s adjacent to Sherlock being the driver of the story. And I’m I’m thinking about um Vicki Delany, and I know you mentioned her series in it recently in another episode, but her sleuth, Gemma Doyle, may be a descendant of Sherlock’s creator, um Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. |
| Sarah | And I wonder if that is a little bit easier for people to accept. |
| Brook | I think so. And I think that it goes back to that love of the genre and love of the characters. I think people could accept that where Vicki Delany is really honoring the stories, but she’s not extrapolating the characters. I think that works well. |
| Brook | And like that series, Sarah, um by Vicki Delany, I think that the Enola Holmes series might kind of strike that same chord because we’re taking it we’re taking the focus a little bit away from Sherlock Holmes and onto his siblings. |
| Brook | We have a lot of the story based around Mycroft and Enola, and there’s not as much extrapolation about Sherlock himself. |
| Sarah | So I’m familiar with a series of children’s books. It’s probably from middle grade or or slightly younger readers ah where Sherlock and Watson are recast as animals. So the title of the series is Sherlock Bones. |
| Sarah | And Sherlock is a, I think, a a bloodhound dog. And um instead of Watson, it’s Dr. Catson, who is a cat. |
| Sarah | And they live in a world that is, i don’t think there’s any humans. I can’t remember if there’s any humans, if all the characters are are animals. And I enjoy these books. I enjoy reading them with my son because in addition to this mystery, ah there are puzzles within the books. And so, you know, there’s, um and I don’t know how many, but every few pages, there’s some sort of puzzle, a little maze that you have to do or a matching or, ah you know, a little code breaking or whatever. |
| Sarah | And that is really fun. um And along those same lines, actually, is a I have a couple of these books that are more geared at adults, but my son enjoys reading these with me as well, that ah it’s a combination not so much choose your own mystery, but ah find your next page after solving a puzzle. It’s framed as an escape room book where ah there are puzzles that you have to solve um to figure out what is the next page that you’re meant to go to. So, the book is not read sequentially, you you know solve a puzzle and it sends you to page 17 and then that puzzle’s page sends you to page 49. um And some of the puzzles are are quite tough. We actually had to look one. but There are answers in the back of the book. We had to look ah so we had to look at the answers for the first one because we just could not figure it out. |
| Sarah | We managed the the the next couple of puzzles we were okay with. um But they are um lots of fun. And I love that they engage the reader in actively, you know, solving the clues as well. |
| Brook | Those sound fantastic. And um you know, your mention of the children’s book, that has these reimaginings of the Sherlock and Watson characters are an example of the value in these reimaginings because it’s keeping these characters and these stories alive. And I just love to see that happening in the world and that, you know, even kids in the 2020s are finding out about these characters and will hopefully, you know, read some of the original canon at some point in their life. |
| Sarah | Absolutely, because this has meant that my son and I have been able to talk about, okay, the real Sherlock Holmes stories and who are the real characters um that that we would find if if we read those. So yeah, i I think you’re exactly right, Brook, that these are like a gateway for younger people to um to access this character. |
| Sarah | Brook, it has been so fun to revisit Sherlock Holmes. You know, we did our first couple of episodes were about this fabulous character. And it’s been really fun to talk a little bit more about some of the other ways that he has been reimagined. |
| Brook | It has been great, Sarah. And the case isn’t closed yet. Next week, we have the pleasure of interviewing the authors of the Sherlock and Lucy series that I mentioned. So you won’t want to miss our conversation with Charles Veeley and Anna Elliott. |
| Brook | But until then, thank you for joining us today Clued Mystery. I’m Brook. |
| Sarah | And I’m Sarah. And we both love mystery. |
