Story Profile: “The Chapel of the Holy Blood”

Story Profile: “The Chapel of the Holy Blood”

 

I love Sherlock Holmes stories.  And I also love G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories.  So when Belanger Books announced their anthology Sherlock Holmes and the Great Detectives, featuring original mysteries where Sherlock Holmes joined forces with other famous (public domain) detectives from that era, I decided to write a story where the two of them solve a crime together.

 

I was inspired by a reference to Father Brown’s niece in “The Worst Crime in the World.”  Father Brown’s sister is trying to get her daughter to make a “prudent” marriage to a wealthy man.  The first attempt to pair the poor girl off to an heir fails miserably, so I wondered what would happen if Father Brown’s sister set her sights on making another rich fellow her son-in-law.  

 

Many of the Father Brown stories feature the priest investigating seemingly paranormal events that turn out to have purely natural– though often sinister– explanations.  In “The Chapel of the Holy Blood,” the paramour of Father Brown’s niece lives in a country estate that used to be a monastery.  When the monks who lived them were killed by the forces of Henry VIII, and the property seized, a legend spread that blood would drip from the walls of the chapel during times of trouble.  When Father Brown discovers a gory sight on his visit, he doesn’t believe this is a magical occurrence, but he requests Sherlock Holmes’s help in using his famous test from A Study in Scarlet to prove that the reddish substance is indeed blood.  The two detectives soon start working together to find out what caused it.

 

I didn’t want to spend time having the two sleuths introducing themselves to each other, so I suggested that the two met while looking into the cases of the Vatican cameos and the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca, both stories briefly referenced in the original Holmes Canon but never fully told.

 

It was great fun for me to write this story, and I hope that mystery fans have equally as much fun reading it.

 

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” will be released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).

 

“The Chapel of the Holy Blood” can be found in Sherlock Holmes and the Great Detectives, and is available from Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle editions.

Story Profile: “The Man in the Maroon Suit”

Story Profile: “The Man in the Maroon Suit”

 

For my second entry in The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Part XIX, in this collection of general stories with no linking theme save for traditional Holmes stories, I wrote “The Man in the Maroon Suit.”

 

I have always been interested in art, and I have long believed that there aren’t enough mysteries focused on art, whether it’s art theft, art forgery, or mysteries where a piece of art is connected to the central crime, such as in Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs.  I wanted to set this crime in an art gallery, but I didn’t want to focus on a traditional painting theft, or have the initial investigation center around a dead body found surrounded by artwork… though there could be a murder occurring or discovered later in the story.

 

I decided to switch my focus to vandalism.  After mulling over some possibilities, I decided to tell a tale about an art gallery where many of the paintings had been defaced by the addition of a little man in a maroon suit.  The man in the maroon suit would be doing different things in different paintings, and his presence was sometimes too subtle to notice at once.  Who painted him?  Why would all of these paintings be altered?  I developed the vandal’s motives as I wrote the story, but I knew from the beginning I wanted the defacement to be more than a mere practical joke…

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” will be released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).

 

“The Man in the Maroon Suit” can be found in The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories– Part XIX, and is available from MX Publishing in hardcover and paperback, and from Amazon.com in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions.

 

Story Profile: “Of Course He Pushed Him”

Story Profile: “Of Course He Pushed Him”

 

During my senior year of college, a friend of mine was slandered by a malicious gossip campaign.  Luckily, my friend’s innocence was easily established, but when mud gets slung about, it’s very difficult to clean it all up, and the truth is often a step behind false rumors.  Not long afterwards, I reread the Complete Sherlock Holmes, and the germ of an idea developed in my head.  

 

What if someone spread a false rumor about Doctor Watson?  What if a malicious person started telling all of London that that Watson’s account in “The Final Problem” was a lie?  What if that venomous individual started hinting that Watson had actually pushed Sherlock Holmes off of the cliff overlooking Reichenbach Falls?

 

I started to mull over this idea a lot.  What would the motive for the falsehood be?  Could Holmes and Watson have sent someone close to the rumor-monger to prison?  Might the lies be the ravings of a crazy person?  Or could it all have some connection to the remnants of Professor Moriarty’s gang?

 

I started writing the story, and after a few hours of typing, realized it was terrible.  So I tried again the next day, reviewed my work, and judged the result was even worse.  Further attempts proved similarly fruitless, so I abandoned the project.

 

But I never stopped thinking that the basic plot was a good one, and after several years had passed, I came back to the tale with a lot more experience in writing fiction.  In a few days, I’d produced a short story I rather liked.  I sent it around, received a rejection from one magazine, and then sent it on to Mystery Weekly, where it was accepted.

 

And so, the story which I titled “Of Course He Pushed Him” found a home.  It’s a tale of an innocent man whose reputation is targeted by a well-organized cadre of bad guys, who are assisted by people who love spreading juicy gossip without regard for veracity or thoughts of the consequences.  I enjoyed writing it, and I hope that others have an equally fun time reading it.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” will be released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website. 

 

“Of Course He Pushed Him” can be found in the October 2019 edition of Mystery Weekly, available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Story Profile: “The Diogenes Club Poltergeist”

Story Profile: “The Diogenes Club Poltergeist”

 

The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories is a series of collections of original tales by contemporary mystery writers.  Starting in 2015, volumes in the series have been generally published in the spring and fall of each year, and the royalties go to support the Stepping Stones School at Undershaw, an educational facility for students with special needs.  Undershaw is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s former home.

 

These are all traditional Holmes stories, written in the style of the Canon, with a few simple rules.  Comic parodying or burlesquing are verboten.  One can’t add major changes to the characters’ backstories or futures.  And supernatural elements are strictly forbidden.  

 

Some of the volumes are themed, and Part XVII: Whatever Remains… Must Be the Truth (1891-1898) focuses on cases involving supposedly supernatural cases that have more mundane solutions.  Part XVIII contains stories on the same theme, but which are set from 1899 to 1925.

 

My first contribution to the series, “The Diogenes Club Poltergeist,” appeared in Part XVII.  I’ve always been fascinated by the character of Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older brother.  A brilliant man who lives by a strict routine, Mycroft plays a pivotal role in the workings of the British government, and on occasion, he is the British government.  When he not working or at home, he spends his hours at The Diogenes Club, an organization for the antisocial, where men can relax in total silence, with no one talking to anybody else, or even acknowledging each other’s existence. 

 

What would happen, I wondered, if something were to happen that would make it impossible for members of the Diogenes Club to keep ignoring each other?  That was the genesis of “The Diogenes Club Poltergeist,” a tale where the once-staid club is suddenly haunted by a supposedly supernatural creature.  Of course, according to the rules of the series, there’s absolutely nothing magical about what’s going on, but the disruption is causing freaked-out members to do the unthinkable and actually converse with each other.  Mycroft isn’t pleased with that…     

 

 

 –Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” will be released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website. 

 

The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part XVII is available from MX Publishing  in hardcover and paperback, and from Amazon.com in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions.

 

Sherlock Holmes and the Hunt for Jack the Ripper

Sherlock Holmes and the Hunt for Jack the Ripper

 

Given Sherlock Holmes’ prominence in late nineteenth-century literature, and the enduring specter of Jack the Ripper’s crimes in 1888, which to this day have not been solved to universal satisfaction, it’s not surprising that many authors and screenwriters have shown an interest in having Holmes investigate the case.  This has become a subgenre of Holmesian pastiches, often involving a double mystery.  First, who is Jack the Ripper; and second, why didn’t Holmes tell the world the solution?  Some of these crossover tales have a familiar figure from the Sherlock Holmes universe as the culprit, and others adopt a popular real-life theory of the case.

 

MX Publishing has released several stories on these themes.  Dean Turnbloom’s Sherlock Holmes & the Whitechapel Vampire adds a supernatural twist, with Jack the Ripper being a actual vampire, and Holmes is left vulnerable due to his skepticism.  The story is continued in Sherlock Holmes and the Body Snatchers, and the trilogy is rounded out by Sherlock Holmes & the Return of the Whitechapel Vampire.  The Last Confession of Sherlock Holmes by Kieran Lyne has Holmes returning from his supposed death at Reichenbach Falls to investigate a resurgence in the Ripper killings that may or may not be connected to Professor Moriarty, who could possibly be not as dead as believed.  Holmes finds himself partnering with Irene Adler at one point, and the conclusion to the case comes disturbingly close to home.  Margaret Walsh’s Sherlock Holmes and the Molly-Boy Murders centers on the hunt for a killer striking not long after Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror ends.  Mark Sohn’s Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders has Holmes investigating the actual crimes, and Diane Gilbert Madsen’s The Conan Doyle Notes: The Secret of Jack the Ripperexplores if the famed author knew more about the case than he told the world.

 

A child-friendly example of this trend is the episode “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. McDuck” from the original animated series Ducktales.  In it, the works of Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are both parodied.  When Uncle Scrooge is sprayed with a chemical that transforms him into the world’s biggest spendthrift, the family travels to London to find the antidote.  There, they find an ally in Shedlock Jones, who is on the hunt for Professor Moody Doody, while the sneak thief Jack the Tripper is terrorizing London, leaving slippery objects around so people fall and are easy to rob.

 

Written and directed by Scott McQuaid, Pop Up Theatre’s Sherlock Holmes in Ripper Street is a forty-two minute radio play about the Ripper Murders, featuring the regular cast, a cameo appearance by Irene Adler, and a shocking solution.

 

In the world of computer games, Sherlock Holmes and the Serrated Scalpel  has Holmes investigating the brutal death of an actress.  Lestrade believes this to be Jack the Ripper’s work, but Holmes isn’t so sure, and he and Watson travel all over London, unearthing the truth.  The Serrated Scalpel has great nostalgia value for me, as I played it growing up, but could never get beyond an early part of the game.  I eventually lost the CD-ROM, then found it years later and wound up finishing the game in a marathon playing session.  The hidden object game The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes 2 also features a case involving the brutal murder of a man who is roundly condemned for his sensationalist attempts to make a quick pound when he opens the “Jack the Ripper Museum,” and claims to know the serial killer’s true identity.  The 2009 game Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack the Ripper centers around the investigation of the case, and players can take the roles of either Holmes or Watson.

 

A personal favorite of mine, the 1979 movie Murder by Decree stars Christopher Plummer and James Mason as Holmes and Watson, as they investigate the Jack the Ripper case, which has the potential to bring the British Government to its knees.

 

The first Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes movie I ever saw, The Woman in Green, features hypnotism, blackmail, and “The Finger Murders” that are likely inspired by the Jack the Ripper crimes.  The Rathbone/Bruce radio episode “The Strange Case of the Murderer in Wax” includes another Ripperesque case, culminating at a standoff at sinister wax museum.

 

This is just a taste of the subgenre.  Lyndsay Faye’s 2009 novel Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson is another prominent example.  Faye has published many Sherlockian pastiches in The Strand Magazine, which have been collected in The Whole Art of Detection.  Bernard Schaffer brings his own take on the case in Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes, as have Anna Elliott and Charles Veley in the Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James mystery The Return of the Ripper.  These are just samples of the vast subgenre of Holmes/Ripper mysteries, and the exclusion of any examples is not meant to imply any denigration of any works that are not mentioned.  Given the possibilities for imaginative minds, this subgenre is likely to continue for a very long time.

 

–Chris Chan

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” will be released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website. 

Will the Real Irene Adler Please Stand Up?

Will the Real Irene Adler Please Stand Up?

 

Over the past century, many distinguished actors have brought very different approaches to their portrayals of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.  Yet as divergent as these takes on the iconic characters have been, the depictions of Irene Adler in popular culture are even more sharp in contrast.

 

Fans differ on how to interpret Irene Adler in “A Scandal in Bohemia.”  Is she a blackmailing villainess?  A proto-feminist heroine?  The real victim of the story?  A lucky antiheroine?  How should her actions and final decision be viewed, and depending on how we assess her character, what does that say about Sherlock Holmes?

 

Various characters have brought radically different approaches to Irene Adler over the years.  On the radio, Peggy Weber (I’m uncertain as to the spelling of her name, as it’s only said over the airwaves and could be “Webber”) played Adler in the 1940’s Rathbone/Bruce radio series.  The biggest changes to her character include pronouncing her name eye-REE-nay instead of EYE-reen, and giving her a grown daughter who comes to Holmes for help in “The Second Generation,” an original sequel.

 

On stage, in Inga Swenson’s Tony-nominated performance in Baker Street, Adler became an ally in Holmes and Watson’s battle against Professor Moriarty, and there’s a hint of a potential romantic relationship with Holmes.  

 

In the movie Sherlock Holmes and its sequel, with Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role, Rachel McAdams plays Adler as a spirited and unrepentant adventuress and criminal, and it’s implied that the relationship between her and Sherlock has been romantic and physical.  

 

On television, Gayle Hunnicutt played a boisterous version of Adler, who knows how to handle a gun and a horse, in the Jeremy Brett Granada series.  The Soviet series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson indicated in flashbacks that Larisa Solovyova’s Adler may have shaped Holmes to make him strongly anti-romance.  In the TV movie Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady, set years after “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Morgan Fairchild’s widowed Adler treats Holmes as an old friend, and expresses a desire to have a child with him.  The TV movie Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars casts Anna Chancellor as an Adler who treats Holmes as an enemy to be destroyed.  

 

More recently, Elementary painted Adler (Natalie Dormer) as an artist who was the love of Holmes’ life, and her sudden death sent Holmes into a downward spiral of addiction.  (Oblique spoilers follow!) Elementary adds a dark twist to her character, combining her with another major character from the Canon.  In Sherlock, Lara Pulver’s take on Adler is the sharpest divergence yet from the original tales, as she’s a gay dominatrix blackmailing the Royal Family, but she’s sexually attracted to Sherlock, who winds up completely triumphing over her at the end.

 

Adler’s a popular character in pastiches.  In Nicholas Meyer’s The Canary Trainer, she’s an ally in Holmes’ fight against the Phantom of the Opera.  In The Last Confession of Sherlock Holmes, by Kieran Lyne, she becomes Holmes’ friend.  In other authors’ hands, she’s the heroine of her own series.

 

This is not a complete list of Adler’s appearances in adaptations and pastiches.  I’m simply listing examples that I’ve seen or read or heard.

 

So what is the real Irene Adler like?  That’s a question I try to answer in my research, and address in my upcoming book Sherlock and Irene, available for pre-order from MX Publishing.

 

 

 

–Chris Chan

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” will be released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website. 

My Obsession With My Least Favorite Sherlock Holmes Story

My Obsession With My Least Favorite Sherlock Holmes Story

 

I was in Middle School when I was first introduced to the Sherlock Holmes universe.  As a gift, my parents gave me this beautiful hardcover copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with illustrations by Barry Moser.  Each story had a beautifully painted image, and I swiftly became obsessed with the Sherlock Holmes universe.  (Soon afterwards, I received another gift consisting of a one-volume collection of The Complete Sherlock Holmes.)

 

But there was a problem.  I loved most of the stories.  “The Speckled Band” was by far my favorite.  My least favorite, however, was “A Scandal in Bohemia.”  It seemed like such an odd way to me to start the collection.  I just didn’t like to see Holmes lose!  Not only that, but even my ten-year-old mind started seeing holes in the story.  He could have easily achieved his objective and gotten ahold of the photograph.  

 

Time passed, and I never stopped obsessing about the problems I had with “A Scandal in Bohemia.”  I started asking more questions.  “What about the negative to the photograph?  “Why was there a two-year limit to the King’s secrets?”  “Why was Irene Adler in such a rush to get married?”  “Didn’t the King accept Adler’s getting away too readily?”  Some things never sat right with me.

 

As I read and reread the series many times over the years, I kept coming back to “A Scandal in Bohemia” and finding more and more unanswered questions.  During graduate school, I discovered Monsignor Ronald Knox and his “Great Game,” and I started applying his approach to unanswered questions from Agatha Christie novels, which were eventually published on the official website.  (Spoiler warning!)

 

Over the past few years, I started to come up with some answers to the questions about “A Scandal in Bohemia” that had plagued me for years.  This spring, having a bit of spare time during quarantine, I managed to write and complete my book Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia, coming out from MX Publishing this August.  In Sherlock & Irene, I finally answer all of the questions that bugged me about “A Scandal in Bohemia” for most of my life, and conclude that Holmes didn’t actually fail in his mission after all!

 

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” will be released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website. 

 

An Introduction

An Introduction 

 

Hello!  My name is Chris Chan.  I’m a writer and educator from Wisconsin, and this is my blog.  

 

I’m a historian and information scientist with interests in the history of crime and punishment, intellectual history, history as/in literature, mass consumption, the history of Milwaukee, the history of science, and Chinese-American history.

 

I’m also a huge fan of Golden Age mystery fiction, and I contribute to the scholarship and fandom of some famous authors.  

 

As for my work, I’m a researcher and “International Goodwill Ambassador” for Agatha Christie Ltd., where I study Agatha Christie’s life and work, write articles about her for the official website, and reach out to fans around the world.

 

Since 2004, I’ve been a contributing editor for Gilbert!, the magazine of the American Chesterton Society.  G.K. Chesterton is best known for his Father Brown mysteries, but he also wrote about every conceivable topic, from religion to politics to economics, and everything in-between.  Over the past sixteen years, I’ve written over two hundred fifty essays, critical reviews, and profiles for Gilbert!.  

 

Since 2015, I’ve worked as a DVD and book reviewer for Strand Magazine, reviewing crime books, TV shows, and movies.

 

My true crime articles and reviews have been published in various publications.  In recent years, I’ve published several Sherlock Holmes pastiches in multiple anthologies and mystery magazines, such as Mystery Weekly, The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, and some anthologies by Belanger Books.

 

I’m also the author of the “Funderburke” mystery series, the saga of a private investigator and children’s rights activist who works for a school and assists students with various problems and crises.  The series has appeared in SERIAL Magazine, Akashic Books’ “Mondays Are Murder” webseries, and the BOULD Awards 2018 Short Story Anthology, and entries in the series have won Third Place in the BOULD Awards and been nominated for the Derringer Award for Flash Fiction.

 

My first full-length book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal In Bohemia” will be published by MX Publishing in August.  

 

Thanks for visiting my blog!

 

 

–Chris Chan

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” will be released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website.