Bloody Words XII

Bloody Words XII will be held in Toronto this year on June 1-3 at Hyatt Regency on King Street.
Bloody Words is Canada’s oldest and largest gathering of mystery readers and authors. Founded in 1999, the conference has become the June event to look forward to for people who enjoy genre conventions.
 
Whether you’re into humorous mysteries or the darkest of psychological noir, you’ll always have lots to see and do at Canada's biggest annual mystery event.

This years guest of honor is Linwood Barclay. After writing four comic thrillers featuring the character Zack Walker, Linwood turned to darker, standalone novels, starting with No Time for Goodbye, which became an international hit. The novel has been translated into nearly forty languages, was the single bestselling novel in the UK in 2008, and has been optioned for film by Eric McCormack. Since then, all of Linwood’s novels have appeared on bestseller lists, and more his books have been optioned.
 

This years international guest is New York Times bestseller Gayle Lynds. Gayle is the award-winning author of nine spy novels and has been called the Queen of Espionage. Her newest, THE BOOK OF SPIES, is due in stores March 30 and is the beginning of her first series. Lee Child writes she’s “today’s finest espionage writer,” while BookPage claims: “Lynds has joined the deified ranks of spy thriller authors like Robert Ludlum and John le Carre” and the London Observer says simply she’s “a kick-ass thriller writer.”

 

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee

This year people from around the world, but most especially those of us who have close ties to the British Commonwealth, will be celebrating Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee. Yes, the Queen came to the throne on 6 February 1952 at the age of twenty-five, and her coronation took place on 2 June 1953.
To mark the Jubilee here in Canada we are expecting a visit from The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.
While on a visit to Queen’s Park in Toronto this March I received my ER II lapel pin which I wear to work everyday.
Queen Elizabeth II is not the first British Monarch to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. Back in 1897, Queen Victoria (whose birthday we celebrate here in Canada in the month of May) celebrated her Diamond Jubilee.

 1897 just happens to be the year that The Canadian Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is set, and I felt I had to mention the event in the chapter entitled The Weeping Madonna. An earlier chapter has Holmes and Watson in the service of none other than Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier. In The Weeping Madonna, Holmes and Watson pay a visit to Laurier after he has returned from England where he attended the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Prime Minister Laurier describes London:
"A great city," he declared. "But not as I pictured it. I went expecting to see a typically British city and found it full of strange faces from around the world. Assembled there were the troops of the colonies dressed in their native garb. They seemed so out of place in all that Englishness. The entire town did not seem itself. It was scrubbed clean and the streets were choked with traffic. Crowds stood atop unsightly and shaky scaffolds and people hung out of windows. The Jubilee was scheduled for June 22nd, and the day before I was knighted by the Queen. The morning of the Jubilee was overcast as the procession lined up along the Victoria Embankment. Fifty thousand service men lined along both sides of the six-mile route, and, as a bugle sounded at eight o'clock, the sun shone through the clouds as if by Royal command, and the procession began. The Colonial Procession was magnificent, premiers accompanied by their troops and bands from all over the world. There were the Zaptiehs of Cypress, the Dyaks of Borneo, bearded, turbaned Sikhs, pigtailed Chinese from Hong Kong, Maltese, Singhalese, and Malays. Men from the islands, deserts, and jungles. We filed up the length of the Mall in just under an hour and into a cleared square before the gates of Buckingham Palace, and filed down the length of Constitution Hill. We stopped before the entrance to St. Paul's and we premiers stepped down from our carriages and sat under a vast canopied pavilion where we observed the approach of the Royal Procession. The Queen arrived to the deafening cheers of the crowd. There was a short ceremony followed by the blast of the big guns and the procession moved on again.
    "I must confess, gentlemen, the entire experience was the proudest time in my life. To think that a Canadian of French decent offered the  principles of freedom in the parliament of Great Britain.”

The Canadian Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is now available on Kindle.

Sherlock Holmes on Kindle

I am very pleased and excited to report that The Canadian Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has been successfully published and available on Kindle.
This is not the first version of CASH to be published. The first was an ebook published in 2002 by ebook publishers Blackfriars Press in London, but that version is no longer available. The second version of CASH was published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box and an additional chapter never offered on the ebook was added as an incentive.
Now the third version has published on Kindle with a new cover designed by Greg Maxwell as well as additional editing by Aimee Parent.
Please check out the latest edition of The Canadian Adventures of Sherlock Holmes selling for the low cost of $1.99 (US).
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007PHZVIM

The print version of The Canadian Adventures of 
Sherlock Holmes is also available.




















To order an autographed copy of

The Canadian Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

please send check or money order:
$20.00 (Can.) plus $3.50 S&H if ordering in Canada
$20.00 (US) plus $7.50 S&H if ordering in the US
to:
Stephen Gaspar
9805 Holly Crescent
Windsor, ON
Canada N8R1Y6

Sherlock Holmes and Justice

While I was reading over my Christmas blog on the Sherlock Holmes story, The Blue Carbuncle, I was struck by the fact that after tracking down the jewel thief, the great detective allowed the culprit to go free. Holmes justified his actions by stating that if the man went to prison, it would make him a repeat offender, and Holmes also states that it was the season of forgiveness.

In looking over the original Sherlock Holmes adventures written by Conan Doyle, I found Holmes’ leniency with certain criminals was not exactly rare. According to Mr. Robert Keith Leavitt: “In the 60 cases in the Writings, there are 37 definite felonies where the criminal was known to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. In no less than 14 of these cases did the celebrated detective take the law into his own hands and free the guilty person.”

I decided to look up some of these cases. Besides The Blue Carbuncle, there was The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, in which Holmes and Watson investigate the brutal murder of Sir Eustace Brackenstall. Holmes naturally finds the murderer and invites him to his Baker Street rooms where the entire story is laid out. Holmes appoints himself judge and Watson the jury and when Watson declares the man is not guilty, Holmes declares, Vox populi, vox Dei, and declares the man acquitted.


In The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot Holmes and Watson encounter three strange deaths (2 men and a woman) while on a Cornish holiday. A fourth murder, similar to the first three is discovered. Holmes finds the perpetrator of the fourth murder and listens to his fantastic tale. The man explains how he had killed the man who murdered the first three, one being is true love. Again Holmes lets the man go free. He explains to Watson: "I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and the woman I loved met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done."

It is a bit unsettling to think of anyone taking the law in their own hands whether it is punishing a criminal or allowing one to go free of punishment. In a free and open society we put law enforcement organizations in place to protect society. These people are trained and are appointed by the public. It is their job and responsibility to apprehend and punish lawbreakers. It is not the job of the public to make such decisions on an individual basis.

Does the public have some responsibilities toward law enforcement? Yes, we do. At least that is what I teach to my grade ten Civics classes. When we are called, it is our duty to sit on juries to meet out justice. We should always cooperate with authorities and report any wrongdoing. “I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies...” Holmes tells Watson in The Blue Carbuncle. But it is our duty as good citizens to assist the authorities wherever we may and thus be a part of society. I would never advocate withholding information from the police. Here in Canada we value peace, order and good government, which are societal values (whereas life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are individual values). So we all must do our part in the protection of society for the good of society, and not for our own personal opinions or feelings.

I do not know if I could rank Sherlock Holmes as an ideal citizen.

For other stories where Holmes was privy to a criminal act, but played fast and loose with law, check out:
Charles Augustus Milverton
The Second Stain
The Bascombe Valley Mystery
The Crooked Man

Stephen Gaspar's books can be found on Amazon

Merry Christmas, Sherlock Holmes

Tis the season when childhood images fill our minds and warm our hearts. For some of us we remember tobogganing down a hill among snow-frosted cedars and pine; star-filled nights whose light reflected off the snow creating the appearance of twilight; the warmth of the house afterward; mittens drying on the radiator, the smell of cooking; the Christmas tree all lit up and sparkly looking quite magical, was magical, in fact, since presents would appear under it on the morning of December 25th.

For some of us Sherlock Holmes afficionados there is no original Conan Doyle tale that captures the spirit of the Christmas Season (indeed, it is the only Holmes adventure that occurs during the Christmas season) like The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.
I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were thick with the ice crystals. Watson states early in the story. It is a nostalgic image that we treasure.

Watson finds Holmes studying a worn hat that had been left by Peterson, the commissionaire.
I beg that you will look upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual problem. And, first, as to how it came here. It arrived upon Christmas morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson’s fire.

Though some of us, no doubt, had grown up with turkeys for Christmas, we can almost smell the goose roasting, its skin turning a glistening golden colour.

For those of us who know the Blue Carbuncle story (and know it well) Peterson finds a precious jewel in the goose and returns to show it to Holmes. The stone is nothing less than the famous Blue Carbuncle that has recently been stolen from the Countess of Morcar in London.

Holmes and Watson track down Henry Baker, the original owner of the goose (and hat). Baker tells how he bought the goose from the owner of the Alpha Inn, who bought the goose from a dealer in Covent Garden. who bought the goose from... You get the idea.

When Holmes finally captures the jewel thief and he relates how the jewel got into the goose, the detective allows the man to flee. Holmes explains:
I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to gaol now, and you make him a gaol-bird for life. Besides, it is the season of forgiveness.

Of all the images and messages we recall this Christmas, let us remember these final words of Sherlock Holmes.

Stephen Gaspar's books can be found on Amazon

To Know Evil Booksigning

On November 13, I will be in Chapters at Devonshire Mall in Windsor between 1-3 pm signing copies of my books;
To Know Evil
The Case of the Empty Tomb
The Canadian Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
I am looking forward to meeting a people and giving away stuff.
If you are in the Windsor/Detroit area at this time, please drop by and say hi.

Sherlock Holmes, Robert Service and the Klondike

If you have been following my blog and reading Cold Hearted Murder, you have been reading not only a serialized Sherlock Holmes mystery, but also a Canadian mystery where a good part of the story takes place in the Yukon Territory during the Klondike Gold Rush.
After I had written The Canadian Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, I did not think I had another Holmes story in me. There had been some nine adventures in the first book which had drained me. I do not know how Conan Doyle could have written 56 short stories and 4 novels. After moving on to another non-Holmes project I got the craving for another Sherlock story. This time I would not write short story adventures but a novel, and I would fashion it after A Study in Scarlet, the very first Holmes story.
I wanted to do a story with Holmes in his usual environs, but I still wanted a Canadian connection. Knowing a bit of Canadian history I focused on the Klondike Gold Rush, a drama unique in North American history. I had read Pierre Burton’s (my favourite Canadian historian) The Klondike years before and was amazed by the incredible stories and characters that the gold rush produced.
I thought the Klondike Gold Rush would be a great backdrop for a Holmes story. Like in A Study in Scarlet, my Holmes adventure, Cold Hearted Murder (yes, I know Cold Hearted should be hyphenated) would have the first part take place in London with Holmes and Watson investigating some gruesome murders. The second part of the story would tell the tale of what led up to the crimes.
Burton’s book had not been my first exposure to the Klondike. As a child I remember my grandfather reciting the poems of Robert Service; The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Cremation of Sam McGgee, which led me to buy and read all of Service’s poems. His verse about the Klondike were always my favourites. In the first part of Cold Hearted Murder I decided to preface each chapter with a quote from an original Sherlock Holmes story. In the second half that takes place in the Yukon, I use a verse from Robert Service. I think my grandfather would have liked that.
One of my original characters from The Canadian Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Henry Barclay of the North West Mounted Police makes an appearance in Cold Hearted Murder as well. You cannot have a good Canadian story without a Mountie. The Mounties were, of course in the Yukon during the Gold Rush to keep order, but that does not mean crime was nonexistent.
Just recently a co-worker gave me a facsimile of a document from the Yukon dated 1903. The document gives permission to a person to view the hanging of two men who killed three people while committing robbery. I decided to investigate and see how many public hangings there were in the Yukon and discovered that between 1899 and 1903 there were seven hangings in Dawson, all for the crime of murder.
This is not so hard to understand when you consider the extraordinary times of thousands of people far from home in a remote wilderness on top of the world all hoping to strike it rich.