Please Welcome Bonnie MacBird

We are delighted to welcome author Bonnie MacBird to Omnimystery News today.

Bonnie has a new Sherlock Holmes adventure being published next month, Art in the Blood (Collins Crime Club; October 2015 hardcover and ebook formats), and we asked her to give us the backstory to the book.

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Photo provided courtesy of
Bonnie MacBird

Art in the Blood is a new, full -length Sherlock Holmes adventure in traditional Conan Doyle style. The title comes from the canonical quote "Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms" which Holmes says to Watson in "The Greek Interpreter", referring to the hereditary aspects of the artistic temperament and that his grandmother was a sister of the artist, Vernet.

The Janus-faced gift of the artistic temperament is a personal interest of mine as I'm a visual artist also, and my mother was a nationally recognized watercolor artist. Being an artist is a bumpy but thrilling road to travel.

Holmes is by some accounts, also nearly bi-polar, arguably borderline Asperger's (though many argue this) but unquestionably artistic — in the sense that he sees what others do not, can distill pattern and meaning from chaos, finds critical importance in detail, displays vast leaps of imagination, has dogged determination and unbelievable powers of concentration. But at the same time he is emotionally labile, vulnerable to serious bouts of depression, susceptible to flattery about his work, socially a rebel, sometimes downright self-destructive, and a bohemian at heart. He is a true artist with all the powers and vulnerabilities attendant to that.

While these qualities are all hinted at in Conan Doyle's originals (which I refer to as "canon"), I wanted to create a full-length novel with this subject as subtext. Conan Doyle wrote Holmes in short stories and novellas, but the increased length of a novel sets up a couple of additional requirements for the writer, I believe.

First, a novel can handle (and should have, I think) some theme to it. Genre novels usually have a kind of "theme light" such as "crime doesn't pay" or "justice is its own reward". But this artistic temperament thing … it's personal for me and I wanted to explore it.

But a longer Holmes story also needs more of what we call in screenwriting "tent pole scenes". Similar to a suspension bridge traversing a larger body of water, more support posts are needed. So in fiction these are scenes of action, or heightened emotion.

I've heard people complain that the Robert Downey Jr movies have "too much action" for a Holmes story. But actually, canon is full of action — Holmes leaps over sofas, flings himself to the ground, is nearly strangled, shot at, run down by a carriage, had a brick nearly land on his head, and is always racing around full tilt with Watson. In canon are people with acid thrown in their face, thumbs and ears cut off, throats torn out by enormous hounds, and it goes on and on. It's just that in a short story only one or two of these show up. So canon is full of action, really. That's why they are the "adventures" of Sherlock Holmes instead of the "mysteries".

My book has plenty of action, but all within the context of solving the larger mysteries of the plot. I love Holmes and Watson with a passion, and putting them both in personal jeopardy, as happens in Art in the Blood, is part of the delicious thrill, I think.

But also, one the things that appeals to me about writing a book with strong mystery elements is the intellectual puzzle of the thing. Add to this, trying to write as a man, not only as a man but a Victorian war hero and a gentleman, trying to create all new Holmes deductions from scratch (one of my pet peeves in pastiche is recycled canonical deductions like the damned scratched watch, come on!) all this tickles my thinking brain.

People often ask if I write on a whim, or plot all ahead; am I a pantser or a plotter? More the former, although I started knowing the crime and who did it. I also had a couple of tentpole scenes in mind, although one changed radically when I got to it.

Writing mystery is a little like soduku. You keep traveling around and around the thing, as it slowly takes shape and clicks into place.

I write every day and have word count goals rather than hourly "butt on chair" goals. I can finish my word count in as short as an hour (but not usually) or it may take me six or more hours. Average is three or four. Almost always first thing in the day, starting usually before dawn.

I research in advance, as I go, and a great deal afterwards. My sources begin online of course, but I did a lot of research at the British Library, the Wellcome Library (also in London), and literally on the ground in Montmartre, at the Louvre, at a Victorian silk mill in Macclesfield, and in London. I walked the routes they took, visited the sites of Le Chat Noir and Toulouse Lautrec's apartment at the time, etc. And I buy and read many, many books.

Historical fiction requires a level of research far beyond contemporary fiction. The language, too required attention. I kept the canon open on my desktop and frequently checked word usage. I asked two esteemed Sherlockians to cast an eye … Les Klinger and Catherine Cooke … and also an Oxford University editor to vet my work for Americanisms or other errors. I consciously decided, however, to use sentence fragments from time to time, that was a small concession to readability and natural dialogue.

I'm a member of a professional writers' group, all published mystery writers, and we meet weekly to read aloud from works in progress. They, too, provided me much tough love as did a colleague at UCLA Extension where I teach. And … my students themselves were an unwitting support. As I verbalize lessons for them, and lead them to better writing, I cement the principles for myself. Everyone who teaches will tell you that. It's an amazing side benefit. Also my students inspire me with their passion, invention and persistence.

As a screenwriter and an actor, dialogue comes naturally to me. What's interesting to note is that Conan Doyle's original style is different from his contemporaries in three ways.

• Shorter sentences;
• More dialogue; and
• Far less introspective and descriptive.

In this way he's more modern and this, along with his superb characters, is a key to why he's still enjoyed and readable today.

Image provided courtesy of Bonnie MacBird

I visualize while I write. A movie is playing in my head. My Holmes and Watson are young, 34 and 35 and I saw a combination of Brett, Cumberbatch and my friend Rob Arbogast as Holmes, and Jude Law, Martin Freeman, and my friend Paul Denniston as Watson. I created illustrations for the book which will be put out in a special edition by The Mysterious Bookshop … and drew from photos of my friends, as did Paget for the originals. One is shown here (to the right).

But of course the real keys are the characters of Holmes and Watson. Sherlock Holmes is written with holes or mysteries in the character himself. While he's a kind of superman, we don't know about his family. We do see that there is pain, there is history … and my story hints at a touch of this. He's brilliant but the vulnerability is endearing. He is capable of physical heroism and vast strength, but suffers collapses. He medicates for depression and likely he would not last without Watson, that much is clear.

The friendship between the two men is key. Who would not like a friend like Watson, one who is there when you are low, but who doesn't let you get away with your shit!

And who wouldn't like to be a friend like Watson? Or frankly a man like him? Brave, whip smart (oh yes, Watson is no dummy), a crack shot, physically strong, tenacious, loyal … and did I say funny? Without Watson's dry wit, there is no fun.

I simply love these two. Love being in their heads, and love spending time with them.

My goal in writing Art in the Blood, and my next Unquiet Spirits, is first and foremost to entertain. But to also supply some intellectual puzzle stimulation and to leave the reader with a little bit to ponder as well. To experience those satisfying moments where one feels the world actually can be set right. And to do so with two of the most loveable and admirable men of my acquaintance.

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San Francisco native Bonnie MacBird earned a BA in music and an MA in film from Stanford before embarking on a thirty plus year career in Hollywood as a studio exec (feature film story development at Universal), screenwriter, multiple Emmy winning producer, actor and playwright. She currently writes and directs plays, teaches screenwriting at UCLA Extension and writes Sherlock Holmes novels for HarperCollins. She lives in Los Angeles with her own Sherlock Holmes, computer scientist Alan Kay, and spends part of each year in London, "the city of her heart".

For more information about the author, please visit her website at MacBird.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Art in the Blood by Bonnie MacBird

A Sherlock Holmes Adventure

Publisher: Collins Crime Club

London. A snowy December, 1888. Sherlock Holmes, 34, is languishing and back on cocaine after a disastrous Ripper investigation. Watson can neither comfort nor rouse his friend — until a strangely encoded letter arrives from Paris.

Mlle La Victoire, a beautiful French cabaret star writes that her illegitimate son by an English lord has disappeared, and she has been attacked in the streets of Montmartre.

Racing to Paris with Watson at his side, Holmes discovers the missing child is only the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem. The most valuable statue since the Winged Victory has been violently stolen in Marseilles, and several children from a silk mill in Lancashire have been found murdered. The clues in all three cases point to a single, untouchable man.

Will Holmes recover in time to find the missing boy and stop a rising tide of murders? To do so he must stay one step ahead of a dangerous French rival and the threatening interference of his own brother, Mycroft.

— Art in the Blood by Bonnie MacBird