Interview with Stephanie Osborn, author of The Case Of The Displaced Detective (science fiction)

Physicist Dr. Skye Chadwick discovers an alternate reality wherein Sherlock Holmes is destined to die at Reichenbach and rescues him, but can Holmes thrive – even survive – in our modern world?

This is a fish-out-of-water story. I wanted to take one of the most brilliant men in literature and place him in a situation where he had only two choices – lose his mind, or man up and adapt.

Grow.

Learn.

I’ve been a “Holmesian” since childhood, so he was the logical choice. And once the “plot-bunny” bit, I couldn’t NOT write it. 215,000 words spilled out of me in two months. Which is why it’s a two-volume: The Arrival, and At Speed. The Arrival is an “origin story,” with foreshadowings of a spy ring after the project that brought Holmes here, and by its end we go full bore into the mystery, which unwinds fully in At Speed.

I adore Holmes, always have, always will. He’s so brilliant, and so very human, at the same time. I wish he WAS real.

Keeping Holmes true to himself as Doyle created him, hands down. Holmes’ character and quirks are fixed. And here I was, putting him in a situation that would stretch his very reason to its limits – imagine being jerked from your own world, leaving everything and everyone you have ever known and loved behind, and transmitted 150 years into the future! And yet I still had to maintain the essential Holmes.

“Everyone please stand behind the yellow line until the doors open. No food, drink, flash photography, or video cameras are permitted. Once aboard the ride, please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times until we come to a full and complete stop. Otherwise, they’re apt to end up in another universe somewhere without ya, and wouldn’t that fry your noggin?”
—Skye Chadwick, The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival