Exclusive interview with author Bonnie MacBird and a review of her Sherlock Holmes mystery
Rating: Four Stars
“Sherlock Holmes was the person and Victorian London the place that called to me, shouted really,” says Art in the Blood author Bonnie MacBird.
“I had to go there. It didn’t matter that there was already a lot of Sherlock…the Robert Downey, Jude Law movies, BBC Sherlock….plenty of pastiches with a wide range of quality. I didn’t care. It’s where I wanted to be. I decided to write the book I most wanted to read, right then.”
Art in the Blood opens with Watson rushing to check on Holmes after he receives a note that 222 Baker Street is on fire. Watson and Holmes travel to Paris and meet with Emmeline La Victoire, whose son is missing. Mycroft, Holmes’s brother, has been watching the Earl of Pellingham, a wealthy aristocrat who does what he wants with no repercussions. To most he’s seen as caring and giving. What has happened to his son?
Moving the story between London and Paris, MacBird uses rich melodrama, mystery, and details about art and Victorian times to enchant the reader. The book is set at the beginning of Holmes sleuthing career, after Watson has married Mary Morstan. The dialogue feels modern, yet has all the depth of Victorian times. MacBird’s fast-paced story is perfect for Sherlock Holmes fans, written in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
“In November of 2011 I had just recovered from a serious illness, and giddy with the gift of a fresh start, I sat down to think,” says MacBird. “How do I want to spend my time? I was drawn to the quote from The Greek Interpreter [by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle], ‘Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms’. Here Holmes refers to the idiosyncrasies of artistic temperament…and one with which he was blessed and cursed, presumably because of inheriting these gifts from his great grandfather, the French artist Vernet.”
MacBird says she did an immense amount of research for the book. “I visited a Victorian silk mill in Macclesfield. I found old maps and the address of where Toulouse Lautrec lived in December of 1888, and went there. I walked the streets of Paris using old maps to trace a route Holmes and Watson take after hearing a singer at the Chat Noir so I could describe what they saw en route. I consulted with chemists, medical historians, train buffs, Sherlockian experts, an Oxford University copy editor for British usage, and many old maps, photos, and articles online.”
“At the Wellcome library I researched cocaine, pain control, shock and more,” says MacBird. “At the British Library, train schedules and leather tanning questions and current events. I consulted a meditation teacher on the history and techniques of meditation…and the Pali Text Society in London at his suggestion. I walked the Louvre and visited paintings mentioned in the book, and checked when certain paintings arrived there, as well as studied them in person. I confirmed my French with a French Sherlockian, and researched recipes, restaurants, and foods of the day.”
Art in the Blood is MacBird’s second novel but her first to be published. As a film writer she wrote the original TRON, has three regional Emmys for television documentaries, and has had two full length musicals produced as theatre. She worked for four years at Universal Studios as a feature film story editor, finding writers for projects, and doing editorial notes on all the movies in development. She teaches writing at the UCLA Extension’s Writer’s Program.
MacBird lives in Los Angeles and likes to spend as much time as possible in London.
Art in the Blood: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure by Bonnie MacBird (Sherlock Holmes Adventures) Hardcover – October 6, 2015 Series: Sherlock Holmes Adventures. Hardcover: 320 pages, Publisher: Collins Crime Club (October 6, 2015), Language: English. ISBN: 9780008130831 $25.99
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