Strange Bedfellows

Whenever the subject of politics comes up in a Sherlockian forum, inevitably at least one voice will pipe up and say, “But this is what we read Sherlock Holmes to escape from!” And indeed we do. Escape from the tawdry scandals being hammered to death by the media. Escape from the politicians, their uncertain priorities, and the odious choices we are forced to make each election time. We even escape from our fellow man, who, en masse, is certainly no wiser than we, as individuals, know ourselves to be.

Ah, to get away for a bit, to that world of Holmes, where the logic of detection rules supreme. A world where politicians and even heads of state must ultimately bow to the truths Sherlock pulls out of dispatch-boxes and covered breakfast dishes. A world where the wise individual overcomes all foolishness, be it governmental or social. Too bad we don’t have Holmes running this country the way Mycroft Holmes once ran England at the height of its imperial glory.

A more whimsical Sherlockian might even ask, “Why can’t we get a Holmes to run this country?”

That question, and its resulting answers, are the basis for some of this issue’s content.

It’s a wacky notion, admittedly, and possibly even a little dangerous. The last Sherlockian to place Holmes in a political campaign (for governor of California) has now seemingly dropped from the face of the planet. The staff of this very publication are showing signs of revolt over this issue, as you’ll soon see, and even though the writers of The Holmes & Watson Report aren’t unionized as yet, their rumblings have given the editor-in-chief cause for alarm. Professor Moriarty’s ties with at least one American labor organization were well documented in The Valley of Fear, and Jimmy Hoffa surely wasn’t the only man to disappear when politics and unions were involved, even without the influences of a certain evil professor.

But that’s not all we have for you this time out.

Our own Sir Hugo went to the BSI dinner and came up short on wine, which was a good thing. You’ll remember an ancient manuscript which read, “for they say that the words used by Hugo Baskerville, when he was in wine, were such as might blast the man who said them.” This is, on a good day, a family publication after all, and I don’t think any of us would like to see Sir H’s words setting our pages aflame, in any case. You’ll find the results of his sober encounter with the oldest of Sherlockian events in a page or two, followed by a toast that the worthy Gordon Speck delivered at that same event.

All this, Mini-Reviews, calendars, a puzzle, and more . . . more being the fact that it’s our March issue, the issue of The Holmes & Watson Report that traditionally goes awry. Wrong date on the cover? Wrong issue number? Whatever this year’s manifestation of the March issue curse turns out to be, bear with us . . . it’s getting to be an annual tradition.

Have fun!

—The Publisher and Editor-in-Chief