Written in the water Rodolfo Martinez's blog

Sherlock Holmes and the mouth of hell

Rodolfo Martinez
Sherlock Holmes and the mouth of hell
Fantastic Bibliópolis, Madrid, June 2007
ISBN: 978-84-96173-79-8

I have spoken a few times in my relationship with the creations of Arthur Conan Doyle. In this blog, in fact, you can find a few entries on the subject. So try not to repeat too much.

While writing Sherlock Holmes and the traces of the poet had in mind then no one, there was no plan to continue writing about the detective from Baker Street. I had gone very well, more than ten years ago, writing "The wisdom of the dead" and this new novel I was having better and also allowed me to explore a different from the usual Holmes, an old man, maybe a little cynical about himself and his extraordinary abilities. It also allowed me to try a few things I had not done before, not knowing whether or not get to arrive safely to port, and the truth is that it was exciting to do so, jump without a net, in a way.

It was after the novel was finished and already in press when I thought I had tried to Holmes in his maturity and old age and therefore would have some logic that now present in his youth.

I started mulling over several ideas and was quick to germinate in my mind a new story. I even had title and everything: Sherlock Holmes and the heir to anyone. I started writing it and, damn, that worked: the story flowed well, tell it how I liked and things were falling into place as they should.

But is not that novel of'm talking about.

Because at the end of 2006 I was invited, using the Portuguese version of Sherlock Holmes and the wisdom of the dead, the Fantastic Forum Portugal. I've talked about these days in Lisbon and its surroundings elsewhere. And I told my visit to Boca do Inferno. The truth is that the place imposed. And the false plate in which he spoke of suicide attempts of Aleister Crowley in this place began to turn the levers and warning lights turn on in my head.

I returned to Spain with the embryo of a new Sherlock Holmes story. I resisted a little writing, yes. I had to focus, I said, my priority was to Sherlock Holmes and the heir to anyone and that mental excrescence that had just emerged (and I say, give as much to a story) should not stand in their way.

But he did. I could not stop thinking about it, thinking it over, play with the idea again and again. Little by little I unthreaded the skein of history and I realized that it was a novel at hand, not a story that not only fit with my other novels but Sherlock Holmes was the perfect bridge to the next, well to let me explain some of the plot inconsistencies that had arisen between the first and second and explore in greater detail several secondary characters he created for them.

Sherlock Holmes was born and the mouth of hell. A novel that has a lot of "look between racks" to what happened in Sherlock Holmes and the traces of the poet. It narrates much of what happened in the world while the detective was engaged in hunting especially in the Spanish Civil War and, incidentally, extends the story beyond a few years until the completion of the plot which had begun in 1895 with the theft of the Necronomicon, while advance some of the elements that appear in more detail in Sherlock Holmes and the heir to anyone.

Does that mean that the novel is meaningless by itself, which is more than just a bridge between the previous and following? I think not that the story is enjoyable and understandable without knowledge of my other Sherlock Holmes novels. No doubt will have read the panorama of history is wider and is more complete, but I tried to Sherlock Holmes and the mouth of hell itself had entity.

That, of course, is up to readers to judge, not mine. Although the reactions of some people who read this novel without having read the previous (and in some cases without having read any of the above) I think I succeeded in my attempt.

While some take the rumors as facts certain, others make the facts on falsehoods. And as each other are much exaggerated by posterity.

Tacitus