Read this exclusive guest post from Kaite Welsh about her fascination with Sherlock Holmes, and then make sure to sign in and comment below for a chance to win her thrilling debut novel, The Wages of Sin!
I met the man of my dreams in the school library during a rainy September. I was between books, and I had been making eyes at The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a giant hardback that took up most of the shelf, for a couple of days. I don’t think I put it down for the two weeks it took me to finish it, sneaking chapters like cookies from a jar—a page here in the hubbub before a test, a few more there while I was loading the dishwasher. To this day, I can't stop at just one case.
There’s a phase I think every Holmes fan goes through, whether they encounter the Great Detective through the pages of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original books or via the perfectly sculpted cheekbones and dulcet tones of Benedict Cumberbatch. Suddenly, every tiny detail takes on a greater meaning—the mud tracked in from the hockey pitch and the crumbs on a school tie all start to tell a story. It gave me a love of forensic detail that may never solve a crime in real life but has at least given me an impressive batting average when it comes to guessing fictional murderers.
[I'm thinking Negan has the best batting average for fictional murders...]