Interview with Bonnie MacBird

Interview conducted Fabienne Courouge

La Gazette du 221B : Hello Bonnie. Glad to interview you again. How are you and what can we wish you for 2025 ?

Bonnie MacBird : How lovely to hear from you Fabienne.  We can only wish for world peace.  Failing that, a beautiful spring.

G221B : What’s the difference between starting your first and your sixth Sherlockian novel? Is it more comfortable or more daunting?

B.M.B. : Both. I take comfort in the knowledge that I have been able to write through some rather severe personal crises as well as the pandemic.  I’m not sure that counts as “comfortable” but perhaps a bit more confident that I can show up on the page no matter what.  But it’s also more “daunting” because as a creative person, I’m always trying to improve my game, I guess.  Make this next novel be the best one.  Push myself in some certain way.   Of course, I must be careful, if I do that too much, it’s hubris.  Right after finishing the last book, I went on a long overdue holiday by spending a week at Oxford – at a Flash Fiction writing class.  I like to stretch and challenge myself and sometimes that’s by being a beginner again. 

G221B : Do you feel freer now that all the Sherlock Holmes’ stories are in the public domain ?

B.M.B. : Not really.  Few things of interest appeared ONLY in those last few tales;  you couldn’t mention a certain sports team Watson played on, etc.  Nothing very significant.  It didn’t affect what I am doing really.

G221B : The review of your novels has so far been glowing. Are you sensitive to reviews? Do you make a difference between professional and individual reviews?  Do reviews play a part in maintaining the desire to write?

B.M.B. :   I would love to be cavalier and say that I ignore reviews both professional and personal but I do not know a single writer for whom that is true.  (No matter what they say). Yes, we all hope for the big publication review.  The Serpent under made it into the London Sunday Times which was a first, and very thrilling.  The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal both made my fifth book What Child Is This? a Christmas pick for readers.  So those notices were very satisfying, and a kind of validation.

But I take special pleasure when the private reader really “gets” something that I’ve tried to convey.  I have a certain kind of reader in mind and it’s very important to me that these books delight whom they are meant to delight.   Which can never be the whole world. I know I’m writing escapist, genre fiction.  These books are meant to be a train or a fireside treat for the intelligent reader.   But I hope they will linger a bit longer after the final page, and I work to create that extra layer of meaning.

 I hope they provide, in a way, some comfort in that critical thinking, intelligence, knowledge and a will to serve justice can triumph against evil. We need that now more than ever.

Now I’m nattering on and what you asked about is how do I respond to reviews.  It means a great deal to me when reviewers are specific, especially about certain things that deal with the theme, and were perhaps tricky to write.  The interchange in The Serpent Under, for instance, when Holmes’s services are requested by a rather strident young woman who is organizing protests to improve the conditions for the female factory workers. A BookBub reviewer said: “Given Holmes’s complicated relationship with women, it’s enjoyable to see him engage with an Emily Pankhurst-type activist & weigh in on women’s suffrage in a nuanced way that feels faithful to his character” This was a scene that I took special care with, and to have it appreciated means so much. 

G221B : What triggered the writing of The Serpent under?

B.M.B. :  The Shakespeare quote from MacBeth. “Look like the innocent flower but be the Serpent under’t.” The theme of betrayal, of deceit, or treachery hidden behind something which appears benign, or even lovely —  came to mind, but also the terror of actual snakes.  I instantly felt there was meat for a good story. 

G221B : This time, you didn’t feel the need to dig in Sherlock Holmes past. Did you feel you knew enough of him now? Do you somehow “got him”? (I think you kind of do)

B.M.B. :  Thank you, Fabienne!  Well, it would be tiresome to dig into his past in every novel, I think, it would become a kind of trope.  But I do like to put the boys into situations we have not seen them encounter before.  In Serpent, for example,  Holmes masquerades in an unusual and very specific guise as a Gypsy who is also an Oxford Scholar (of course he is neither) and pulls it off admirably.  And there is room for some juicy characterization during the tattooist encounter, as well as the excursion to the Japanese festival.  (That was a real festival, by the way!)  I like sending him into unusual places.  I love revealing hidden areas of his expertise (hypnosis, in this one!) So each book doesn’t have to dig through his past, although I think something new can be shown that does not distort the man in canon, but clearly fits him.

G221B : Your novels so far, take place between 1887 and 1891: Is it for you the time when Sherlock Holmes as at his best ?

B.M.B. : I simply wanted them to be young men, in their thirties, as that is how I envision them.

G221B : Are you tempted to write someday an adventure with a very young or an aging Sherlock Holmes?

B.M.B. :  I would love to write a younger Holmes, when he and Watson were perhaps newer to each other.  However doing that would leave out Heffie, whom they meet later, and who has become a fan favorite.  I am less interested in an aging Holmes and Watson.  Not sure why.  Maybe because I’m an aging person and that’s not the headspace I enjoy inhabiting.   

G221B : From Windsor Castle to London’s docklands, your descriptions of Victorian London are wonderfully atmospheric, and the reader gets a real sense of time & place. Besides the historical research, how do you get it?

B.M.B. :  Thank you, Fabienne.  If at all possible, I visit the actual locations.  Less possible during the pandemic.  But I research onsite whenever I can.

Also, I seek out and meet experts. I had a knighted herpetologist who is an Oxford don advise me on Serpent, and he was a delight!  I enjoy meeting unusual experts. In fact, experts in anything tend to be interesting people.  That is perhaps the most fun aspect of what I do.

G221B : How do you choose the setting for the investigations? Is it a spontaneous process, an idea that pops up in your mind? Or a long journey to determine the places and circumstances in which you want to immerse Holmes and Watson?

B.M.B. : It is a little bit whimsical.  I love Paris and was in Paris when writing those scenes in Art In The Blood.  I walked the streets to map the route from Le Chat Noir to where Lautrec actually lived on those dates. I visited a Scottish medieval castle that had been refurbished in Holmes’ time and took details from that for Unquiet Spirits, including the dangerous ice house, and the spy closet.  Sometimes I just pick a place and decide to set a scene there. For Serpent, I chose Windsor Castle, the Zoo, the Japanese Village, — long gone, of course but I found photos and descriptions, and an atelier of a William Morris-esque designer.  Oh yes, and a tattoo parlour. 

Did you know that Jenny Churchill, Winston Churchill’s mother, had an ouroborous tattooed on her wrist at this time? So these ideas are not all that fantastic after all!

G221B : In The Serpent Under, the 3 settings of the 3 different plots seem very different yet have similarities: Unspoken rules, deceit and internal violence to name just a few. Is it intentional? Does it underline the inherent cruelty of any human community?

B.M.B. :  Not exactly.   The theme was betrayal. The snake hidden under something or someone innocuous.  The secret saboteur.  The enemy posing as a friend.  Things that need to be uncovered.  Even the hypnosis scene followed that theme, although what was uncovered, while villainous, helped our heroes.

G221B : Do you think, that, to write crime novels:  you have to be optimistic ( Holmes and Watson will restore justice) ? Or pessimistic (crime is everywhere and Holmes is like Sisyphus rolling his rock)?

B.M.B. : I am an avowed optimist.  In Sherlock Holmes stories –no matter how terrible the crime, no matter how evil or dangerous the perpetrator, the crime will be solved by a single man using the power of his intellect, his knowledge,  his strength and stamina, his persistence, his will, the very force of his being —- all in service of justice.    And these stories, too, emphasize and so clearly display one of the great friendships in literature.   Everyone wants to have a Watson. Or to be a Watson.

Writing about evil is stating the obvious. 

To set things right, it’s a much harder task.

No nihilism for this writer.  Optimist all the way.

G221B : Heffie learned fast and she’s becoming a pretty good detective. She reminds me of Elisa Doolitle. Do you think Holmes have the makings of a Pygmalion?  How would you describe her relationship with Holmes ?

B.M.B. : Well, the Pygmalion echo comes from Holmes correcting Heffie’s grammar in this last book.    But no, not exactly.  He sees potential in her and would like to guide her toward opportunities to develop into the formidable crime fighter she seems destined to be.   

G221B : Would it be a possible to make her the main character of a spin-off?

B.M.B. : I have a new series that I am pitching.  She will likely appear in it. But it is not based around her.

G221B : With or without Heffie, are your next novels on track?

B.M.B. : Yes.  Depending on what my publisher wants, I have a seventh Holmes in the planning stages, and also Book One of a new series.