Behind the Book—Author’s Note

I first heard the name Sherlock Holmes from a children’s magazine, in which an article featured him as the ‘King of Detective Stories.’ The character took hold of my heart, and I was just twelve years old then.

Fascinated, when my father asked what I wanted for that vacation, I didn’t think twice — I already had my answer ready: a Sherlock Holmes book.

He didn’t ask many questions. The next day, we were at the Mathrubhumi bookstall in Kannur. Browsing through the Sherlock Holmes titles—past the single novels, past the short story collections—I couldn’t take my eyes off one volume: over a thousand pages, thickly bound, ‘The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes.’

I hesitated at first, seeing the size and the price, but my father insisted—”if you want it, take it.” It remains, without doubt, the best gift he ever gave me.

I didn’t need the whole vacation to finish it — not nearly. I completed it within days, or better to say I consumed it, a twelve-year-old boy going line by line from his veranda.

And from that point on, Holmes became an obsession.

I carried that obsession through my teenage years, and into my adulthood as well. Growing up, watching every Sherlock Holmes film and series I could find, rewatching them again and again, I reached a point of such passion for this character that I began to wonder: what next?

Ooh—the universe. The universe sent me a signal, a strong one. A gift, hand-stitched, with so many blank pages for me to fill, and a cover image packed with hidden details that only I could decipher, holding the keys to my core plot.

On that day, I decided to turn the passion into what I am already good at—writing.

Let’s write a Sherlock Holmes novel.

A postgraduate in journalism and a content writer by profession, I perhaps should have done it long ago.

But better late than never.

However, I could not simply write another case of Holmes solving a crime. The great Conan Doyle himself has already covered so much ground, and the many Sherlockian writers who followed him have done their part too. I wanted to give readers something they had never seen Holmes face before.

After much thought, I found it: time.

But a few writers had been down that road before me, so I added something of my own: I brought Holmes to India. And with that, my degree in philosophy came full circle.

After thinking, brainstorming, writing, and reading it over and over again—editing, cutting, adding, cutting again—I finished this book, having tried my best to bring back the Holmes that a twelve-year-old boy once became obsessed with.

Welcome back to Baker Street.