It's Elementary! Q&A About a New Sherlock Holmes Novel by a Santee Author

Santee Author Dean Turnbloom's new book, "Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire," was recently published. Santee School Board member asks the author some questions about the book, the publishing industry and life in Santee.

Q. Can you tell us a bit about your background?

A. I currently work for the Defense Department as a civilian after retiring from a thirty-year career in the Navy. I've been married for the last thirty-five years to the love of my life whom I met right here in San Diego. We have three children and two grandchildren (if you don't count my daughter's four dogs, and I don't). My interests include my family, of course, particularly my grandchildren, literature, art, politics and music.

Q. How long have you lived in Santee?

A. We bought a house here in 1991, though we've lived in Santee since 1987 when we returned from a three year tour of duty in Hawaii. We love Santee. One of the things we like most is that even though we live in populous San Diego, we have wildlife just outside our back yard. , raccoons, skunks, and opossums have made their way into our yard from time to time and have even seen a family of bobcats over our back fence. There's a large eucalyptus tree near our house that has been home to a pair of hawks for the last ten years or so. So, even though we live in the city, we have the .

Q. What led you to writing?

A. I really don't know what led me to writing. I think I just wanted to see if I could write an entire novel, tell an actual story that spans hundreds of pages, and have it come out making sense and making an enjoyable read. I hope I've done that.

Q. Have you done other writing prior to Whitechapel?

A. I actually have a series of books, though I don't really consider them as a part of my "writing." The series is called "Prizewinning Political Cartoons," published by Pelican Publishing and is a compendium of the year's national award winning cartoonists and cartoons. It presents the works of editorial cartoonists that have won the year's Pulitzer Prize, National Headliner Award, and many other national honors. I put them all together in one place for aficionados of political humor. There have been other yearly "Best" cartoons of the year, but my series is unique in that it presents award-winners instead of the editor's subjective idea of what the "best" are. 

Besides this, I've written some short stories, one of which I've self-published on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, and another was selected by L&L Publishing for their anthology on horror. The thing I like least about self-publishing is trying to come up with a nice cover. It's so much nicer leaving that up to the publisher, although I did give them the idea for my book cover.

Q. Tell us about Whitechapel.

A. The plot of "Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire" is actually quite simple. A centuries old vampire tries to get out of the business. He follows a young American doctor who's on a lecture tour to London, leaving the bodies of his victims in his wake. While he's convincing the doctor to cure him, he satisfies his appetite with the blood of the poor "unfortunates" in London's Whitechapel district. An unintended consequence of his need to disguise their deaths is that he becomes labeled "Jack the Ripper."

Sherlock Holmes, who is trying to prove a young Italian immigrant innocent of murder, enters the picture when Inspector Abberline of Scotland Yard reluctantly requests his assistance. Abberline is receiving pressure from his boss, the Police Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, who coincidentally is friends with the baron. His young niece, Abigail Drake, also falls in love with the baron. I'll leave it there, but it's safe to say that Sherlock Holmes may have finally met his match, particularly since his practical mind cannot wrap itself around the existence of a vampire.

I make no claims about a lofty vision or deep philosophical themes. But I did want to cast the character of the vampire as an almost sympathetic victim. I think in an almost simplistic way it poses some interesting questions. After all, the baron didn’t ask for the condition in which he found himself and he was only acting in accordance with his nature.

And as he made his argument to Holmes, was he really any worse than the society in which he lived? Is it possible to commit evil acts without being evil? The genesis of the idea, though, came from a very unusual place, I think. Telling the entire thought process would, however, be a bit of a spoiler, so I'll just say that the germ of the idea came to me from a James Taylor song, "Frozen Man" from his "New Moon Shine" album. 

Q. Why Sherlock Holmes as your first fiction effort?

A. I've long been a fan of Sherlock Holmes, having been first introduced to him in Saturday TV matinees with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce playing Holmes and Watson when I was a kid. I’ve since read the Holmes “canon” of works and truly enjoy re-reading them. Holmes, to me, is the archetype for the detective, what every detective should strive to be. It always seemed logical to me that Holmes would have investigated the Ripper murders and undoubtedly would have solved it. So I just had to work out how he could have discovered the identity of the Ripper but kept that knowledge a secret. I think I've handled that quite nicely, and without involving the royal family.

Also, I wanted to blend the realism of the Jack the Ripper murders with the fantasy of a vampire. I did a lot of research into Victorian London of 1888, the Ripper murders and the character of Sherlock Holmes. I owe a lot of the facts about the Ripper murders themselves, as I present them in the book, to the Casebook: Jack the Ripper web site (www.casebook.org). I used a book written by Charles Dickens’ son, also named Charles Dickens, for facts about London itself at the time, “Dickens’ Dictionary of London: 1888”, a marvelous storehouse of facts and figures. And of course, I have the “canon” from which I drew my characterization of Holmes, probably colored by Rathbone and Bruce.

Q. I understand your book has been endorsed by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate. Tell us about that.

A. In the United States, the Sherlock Holmes characters are still protected under copyright laws, though the legalities in this case are a little murky. I wanted to be very up front about the use of the characters and so I went in search of the legal copyright holder. It has apparently changed hands through the years since Doyle's death, but has now made its way back to Doyle's heirs. I found the representative of the Estate and wrote to him. He requested I send him my manuscript to review and was more than satisfied that I wasn't taking undue liberties with the character. I'm very happy to say that my book is only one of three to have won the privilege of carrying the seal of the Conan Doyle Estate on the cover. It really is quite an honor and one of which I am most proud.

Q. Tell us about the challenges of being published.

A. Challenges don't even begin to tell it. I thought I would have a leg up, having had a book series published, but the world of fiction is so very much different. The first thing I tried to do after having the book written (although it's gone through an evolution since this stage) was to try and interest an agent in representing the work. 

I learned a lot in this process, about the business of publishing as well as about writing. When I first began to fish for an agent, I had to decide what genre of fiction the work was. Was it a mystery? A detective novel? Horror? Paranormal? True Crime? Historical fiction? I honestly did not know. One of the big lessons I learned was that how I categorized it was a function of who I was trying to sell it to. Some agents only represent one or two genres. I went from one genre to another, writing well over a hundred queries, and being turned down well over a hundred times.

But along the way, some of the agents were kind enough to offer bits of advice, which I tried my best to incorporate and I believe made my work a much better novel in the end. By this time, though, I'd run through so many agents that I was afraid I had poisoned the well, so to speak. So, I started looking for publishers who would deal directly with authors, which means smaller publishing houses. I was lucky enough to find MX Publishing, a smaller publishing house in the United Kingdom, that specializes in Sherlock Holmes book, and while my book was never meant to be a purely Sherlock Holmes book, the publishers liked it and agreed to publish it. The sequel, which is currently in the works, may be another challenge since Holmes will be absent. I hope I've learned enough to meet that challenge.

Q. What advice would you have for aspiring authors?

A. If writing is what you want to do, don't give up, but don't be afraid to rewrite. And read. It's important to read a lot, not just literature, but reference books for writers and grammar and publishing blogs and on and on. One book I found particularly helpful (and there are many) is "Writing Tools" by Roy Peter Clark. It's a bit of a "how to" but skillfully done, with logic and good humor.

I’ve read some “experts” who say you must start with an outline. I use an outline mainly as a map of the work I’ve done, not to create the work, but to document it so that if I need to add or change something, I know where to insert the changes more readily and whether there is something that a late change might contradict in an earlier chapter.

So, I would advise a writer to find what works for you. Whatever makes it easier to organize, characterize and plot out the story. I would advise plowing through the whole story first, getting down what happens and worry about how best to express the actions in the rewrite process. Edit the action first, then edit expression of the action and finally edit the grammar, spelling, etc. I think overall there is less rework this way.

Q. Where can people get a copy of your book?

A. That's easy. It's available in digital format at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com as well as itunes.apple.com and practically anywhere you can purchase ebooks. The paperback was due to be released May 7, but there were some last minute changes that had to be put in and it's been delayed, probably till June 7, at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It can be ordered, however, from MXPublishing.com, but if you want to avoid any shipping costs, I'd recommend bookdepository.com, which has free worldwide shipping.

There's always the local bookstore, if they don't have it on hand, they will gladly order it for you. Or, if you'd prefer a signed copy, you might be able to get one at Warwick's bookstore in La Jolla. I am hoping to have a book signing there in early August, during "Sherlock Holmes Week" (July 29 - August 5).

Thanks for interviewing me. It's really been a fun experience.

Click here to buy Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire