history of a 'pact with the devil'

San Francisco native Bonnie MacBird has been a devoted Sherlock Holmes fan since the age of ten. She credits her sense of character, structure and pace to her long career in entertainment. After earning degrees in Music and Film from Stanford, she found work as a feature film development executive at Universal Studios, then later wrote and sold many screenplays, including the original screenplay for Tron. Following three Emmy Awards and eleven Cine Golden Eagles for documentary writing/producing, MacBird switched to theatre writing, directing and acting, with credits in all three throughout Los Angeles.

Then came MacBird’s 2016 novel debut, her first in the Sherlock Holmes Adventure series, Art in the Blood, which was published in 14 languages and earned legions of fans and wide critical acclaim as an “Editor’s Pick” (Publisher’s Weekly), “a smashing fast-paced page-turner (BookPage), “a worthy addition” (Kirkus),and a “faithful, full-blooded and breathlessly plotted homage” (Irish Times).

Unquiet Spirits, her second book in the Sherlock Holmes Adventure series, raises the bar even further. MacBird weaves a tale of kidnapping, bombing, ghosts, and murder which propels the Great Detective and Watson to London, the South of France and finally to the freezing Highlands of Scotland. There, in a “haunted” castle and among the copper dinosaurs of a great whisky distillery, they face mortal danger, and Holmes realizes that three seemingly disparate cases have blended into a single, deadly conundrum. In order to solve the mysteries, the ultimate rational thinker must confront a ghost from his own past.

Unquiet Spirits, like Art in the Blood, and Conan Doyle’s originals, is narrated by Dr. John Watson and set in Victorian times. And while MacBird emulates Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s style and remains faithful to his characters and the timeline of the canon, she also aims to shine a little light on the mystery that is Sherlock Holmes himself.

What can I say? MacBird’s meticulous research, vivid period detail, superb plotting, and deep respect for the canon ensures that Unquiet Spirits satisfies and delights both Sherlock Holmes aficionados and new fans of the genre. For two unique features, note the artist-designed drop caps which tease each chapter, and visit http://macbird.com/unquiet-spirits/notes/ for annotations with fun historical and Sherlockian facts to enhance the reading experience of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed my recent conversation with MacBird. Her passion, exceptional writing/storytelling and sense of history is beyond impressive.

Bonnie, when did you first fall under the spell of Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing and Sherlock Holmes in particular?

I was 10 years old when I read my first Sherlock Holmes story and I got hooked instantly. Right after that I devoured the entire canon. Holmes has this sort of intriguing outsider quality that I think appeals to kids, especially kids who read a lot and are smart. You’ve got all of these incredible elements that poke and push a child’s imagination. Mysteries and murderers and colorful characters. All of those adventurous things that struck me as a child still strike me today, even more so. Over the years, there have been so many great re-imaginings of Sherlock Holmes and so I guess I just keep getting reinfected (laughs). Things like Young Sherlock Holmes and The Mouse Detective always kept him at the cultural forefront. And I used to watch all of the Basil Rathbone black-and-white movies as a kid on TV. I could never get enough.

He really does live on in modern times.

Oh absolutely. I fell in love with the TV show House with Hugh Laurie, which to me is really just Sherlock Holmes. In almost every way. It’s such an interesting modernization of the character. They would also do these great allusions in this series to Holmes stories which I always loved and looked out for.

Did you pick up on that right away?

Oh gosh, yes. I knew five minutes into watching the first episode that it was Holmes. I even wrote a spec script for the show shortly after seeing the first episode which was the hardest thing I have ever written up until that point.

What made it so difficult?

Well as I would later learn in writing about Sherlock Holmes, it’s very hard because you’re essentially crafting a story built around the smartest man in the world. So you have to construct something that fools him for a certain length of time. You have this really smart guy who has to be wrong about all of it until the very end so that’s a complicated plot scheme to write.

What do you think makes him such a timeless character?

He’s really smart and vulnerable and flawed and he’s always on the right side of justice. Then you have this incredible friend of his, Watson, who is the friend we would all love to have. Somebody who admires us and understands us and makes room for our foibles. Doesn’t everybody want that? He’s also very observant in his own way. It’s a great friendship; a very appealing friendship that I think we all would like to have.

What are the challenges of writing complex period pieces such as this?

I think we tend to look at the Victorian era through rose-colored glasses. It’s all gaslit and fog-shrouded. But it was very harsh in many ways including politically, which makes it very current with today. It was also the end of the British Empire and there was war after war after war. Things were also in flux due to many technological changes as well. Mainly because of trains, with steam and electricity. But communications, medicine all of these things were changing so rapidly. The speed of change was also very similar to today. So in that respect it’s similar. The challenges really come trying to accurately capture the era; the look and feel and tone of it.

Talk about the research. Your level of detail is truly remarkable.

It’s so much fun but it does add a lot of time to writing books like this. I spent a lot of time at the British Library and other renowned libraries, I visited an amazing distillery which had these giant copper stills that looked like something from Jules Verne — so many of the places I would visit would actually give me ideas for the story. Writing historical fiction, there’s this whole layer of stuff you have to pay attention to from breakfasts to cufflinks But Conan Doyle was writing contemporary fiction so he didn’t have to deal with any of that (laughs). But the authenticity is so important. I would walk the streets between actual places so that the descriptions in my book would be accurate.

You seemed to approach these projects with a very cinematic sense.

It’s hard for me not to do that. I was in the movie business for 35 years and Conan Doyle was called “cinematic” even though he predated cinema. There are things that I think make him cinematic. He’s a very visual writer. Also, he used dialogue more than any of his contemporaries. I think that’s why his writing still feels fresh 130 years later.

What’s your next writing project involving Sherlock Holmes?

Well so far it’s called The Devil’s Due. The theme I’m working with right now is, if you’re battling evil, if you’re on the side of the angels, but you are not an angel yourself, where is that line? How close do you get when you are chasing and battling evil? What if you make a pact with the devil... to combat the devil?

Source: AFP