with Barry S. Brown
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Barry S. Brown to Omnimystery News today.
Barry is the author of the Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street mysteries; the third and most recent book of the series is Mrs. Hudson in the Ring (Sunstone Press; December 2013 trade paperback).
We recently had the chance to talk to the author about his books.
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Omnimystery News: How did you happen to choose Mrs. Hudson as the recurring character for your stories?
Photo provided courtesy of
Barry S. Brown
Barry S. Brown: We all know of Mrs. Hudson, the landlady at 221B Baker Street, acting as a housekeeper to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. And I got to thinking what if she really was acting? What if it was all a pretense made necessary by the Victorian times in which she lived. What if she was the sage of Baker Street and Sherlock Holmes the essential male figurehead for the consulting detective agency she organized. She could then have studied crime and its detection with her constable husband, nightly reviewing the crimes reported in the day's paper to determine what could be teased from the clues provided, what needed to be explored to solve those crimes, and how the investigation might proceed. And she could have honed her skills in observation and analysis from her study of the people she saw at the greengrocers, on the horse-car and along London's streets, while also learning of advances in criminal investigation from books and articles borrowed from the British Museum's Reading Room. Then, when her husband dies unexpectedly, Mrs. Hudson would use the lodgings they had leased to put to work her knowledge and skills, employing Holmes and Watson as apprentices, colleagues, and as the agency's face to the public.
OMN: How much of yourself can be found in your characters?
BSB: The common wisdom is, of course, that you inject yourself into your characters. And I would like to believe that I'm as observant and analytical as Mrs. Hudson, as courageous and self-assured as Holmes, and as loyal and reliable as Dr. Watson. I fear, however, that I may be as frugal as the Mrs. Hudson, as immodest as the Holmes, and as deliberate as the Dr. Watson I have depicted. In truth, parameters have been developed for the personalities of Holmes and Watson and one can extend those limits only so far. Mrs. Hudson, on the other hand, is a nearly blank slate. Watson's only description of his landlady was to speak of "her stately tread." That can be taken to view her as being on the plump side. I have interpreted Watson's comment as his single admission of the respect and authority due the woman.
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
BSB: Probably the best advice was being told "writers write." Which is to say if you're going to be a writer sit down in front of the foolscap/ typewriter/ computer keyboard and do it. I find it necessary to set a schedule and then steel myself from the innumerable diversions that abound — a bookcase whose improperly aligned volumes demand my attention, or the Gunsmoke episode I've only seen four times.
The next best advice I've ever gotten is to write for yourself. This may, in fact, mean a limited audience and extraordinarily modest royalties, but whatever book I am working on will be my companion for a year or more and I can't conceive of remaining that long with someone I can, at best, barely tolerate. Nonetheless, I'm happy to see my latest good friend, Mrs. Hudson in the Ring, establish as many acquaintances as possible and will suffer no pangs of jealousy even if others take Mrs. Hudson to bed with them.
OMN: And how about the worst advice?
BSB: I'd have to say the worst advice was to write about the things you know. I know it is the standard line fed to all writers. And I suppose it works well if one has been raised by gypsies, or spent one's formative years as a Caribbean pirate, but if there's anything to Thoreau's line about most of us living lives of quiet desperation, it simply won't wash. I, myself, have worked in prisons, mental hospitals and drug treatment programs and those venues would seem to provide grist enough for anyone's mill, but I hold to a different view. We read to get outside ourselves, to explore new worlds and have new experiences. Why shouldn't the writer have the same privilege? Those things that make up or have made up my life may appear interesting to some, but I want to explore new worlds, and I have chosen the new (to me) old world of Victorian England.
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
BSB: I am usually up at about 6:30AM and after reading the newspaper, failing at the sudoku and crossword, checking my e-mail, deleting three-quarters of what appears in my inbox, going for a run, checking the mail at the post office, and exchanging pleasantries with my wife, I am ready for lunch. This is where discipline belatedly kicks in — most of the time. I am now ready to hammer away at the keyboard for several hours after lunch and a couple of hours in the late evening.
For each book I will develop brief bios and back stories for the major characters other than the continuing trio of Mrs. Hudson, Holmes and Watson (although a back story was created for Mrs. Hudson prior to the first book in the series). Most importantly, I will have developed a detailed outline of the events of the story chapter by chapter. Except for the story's beginning and ending I will deviate often and dramatically from the outline, but it is a security blanket that provides me the illusion that I know the route to get home even as unforeseen side roads prove far more appealing than the highways I have carefully mapped out.
Writing is, as someone has said, rewriting. And if no one has said it, someone should have. I will write a section, be astounded by its quality as I am writing; then read it and be appalled by its lack thereof. Before proceeding to the next section I will revise, reread and revise, typically three or four times until it seems tolerable and then move on to the next section where I will repeat the process. When the manuscript is complete, I will reread and revise it anywhere from ten to fifteen times, give it to a few readers I can trust to use faint praise if they find need to damn me, and then revise further — or not — in association with their critique. I should note that my poor wife, reading the manuscript's several rewrites, can recite it nearly verbatim at the end of this process. It is finally ready to send to my publisher, Sunstone Press, for their tender ministrations. Typically, however, I find they haven't mastered the faint praise portion of the review process.
OMN: How do you go about researching your stories?
BSB: Research is a big deal for me. On the one hand, I find it great fun. On the other, I really want to get right the critical elements of the history of the period, and of crime investigations as they would have been conducted in the 1890s. I try to build each story around a real piece of history, typically one that is exotic, but little known. In my first story, The Unpleasantness at Parkerton Manor, I incorporated the so-called White Rajahs of Sarawak, a renegade English family that acquired significant territory in what is now Malaysia and ruled a land of headhunters and pirates through three generations. In the second, Mrs. Hudson and the Irish Invincibles, I incorporated the fight for Home Rule for Ireland and, more particularly, the role played by an extreme revolutionary group as well as the more restrained advocacy of Charles Parnell. Finally, in Mrs. Hudson in the Ring, I incorporate the transition from bare-knuckle fighting to Marquis of Queensberry Rules as well as the trials and tribulations of Lillie Langtry after she had ceased being a favorite of the Prince of Wales.
In the latter book I also consulted with an extraordinarily able forensic chemist (and mystery reader) at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington with regard to the analysis of liquids for the presence of Adenia digitata, an exotic South African poison.
Of course the characters and the times are set within a tale of mystery, and history is fitted to story-telling — I hope without compromising either. A problem often encountered is that history rivals or surpasses fiction for improbability. Indeed, I found it useful to include an Epilogue in Mrs. Hudson in the Ring both to allow the reader to learn what ultimately happened to the story's major actors, and to assure the reader that what they are reading involves the unusual, but not the impossible.
OMN: Suppose this series were to be adapted for television or film. Who do you see playing the key roles?
BSB: First, of course, I would need several days for celebration and recovery should such an event transpire. When that was complete, the choice for Mrs. Hudson could be simply made. I would be willing to engage Dame Judi Dench even without a screen test. To play Dr. Watson I would be delighted to hire Dustin Hoffman if he would consent to growing a small moustache. Finally, I would consider Hugh Laurie for Holmes, thereby allowing him to regain the accent he abandoned for House. I would also demand a cameo role for myself as a prominent extra in order to impress my children and grandchildren, assuming there is anything I can do that will impress my children and grandchildren.
OMN: What's next for you?
BSB: After the film's completion and I have attended the last of the multiple awards ceremonies that follow its release, I plan to complete work on my next story in the Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street series. In that tale Mrs. Hudson travels to New York to be the family's representative at the wedding of her cousin's daughter only to learn the bridegroom is accused of attempting to assassinate J. P. Morgan, and once again the game will be afoot for the Baker Street trio.
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Barry S. Brown spent his professional life conducting research examining treatment issues and strategies in mental health, criminal justice programming and drug abuse. Over the course of his career he published over 100 papers and chapters as well as editing two books of non-fiction. He has also published a half dozen short stories and some poetry in addition to the three books in the Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street series.
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Mrs. Hudson in the Ring
Barry S. Brown
A Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street Mystery
When Sherlock Holmes is goaded into a boxing match, his opponent, Sailor Mackenzie, loses both the bout and his life. All are convinced Mackenzie's death was a ring accident. All, that is, except the residents of 221B Baker Street, and Inspector Lestrade who defies his Scotland Yard colleagues to aid in a murder investigation.
In this, the third in the Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street series, Mrs. Hudson, the unheralded director of the consulting detective agency, leads her colleagues from London to McLellan Manor in Yorkshire as they sort through the numerous people who have reason to celebrate Mackenzie's death. Complicating their investigation, Holmes and Watson are asked to become Lillie Langtry's protectors, and Mrs. Hudson her lady's maid, when the famous beauty is threatened by her latest admirer, the volatile George Baird.
All will become clear, but not before Holmes and Watson call on a ghost to solve a 35-year old murder, and Mrs. Hudson discovers she has more in common with Lillie Langtry than she ever expected.
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