FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
“AUTHOR PENS SHERLOCKIAN PASTICHE SERIES…WITH A TWIST”
INLAND EMPIRE, CA—Author Jeri Westerson used to get medieval on her historical mysteries. Now she’s taken up her deerstalker and pipe and pens Sherlockian tales. With a twist. Not focusing on Sherlock Holmes, she takes a right turn to spotlight one of his former Baker Street Irregulars who aged out of Holmes’ collection of spying street urchins to open his own detective agency with his own “Watson”. That’s the premise behind Westerson’s Sherlockian pastiche series An Irregular Detective Mystery. She’s on tour with the second book in the series, THE MUMMY OF MAYFAIR from UK publisher Severn House.
London, 1895. Former Baker Street Irregular Tim Badger and his colleague in detection Ben Watson are hired as security by an illustrious surgeon for his mummy unwrapping party and make a rather grisly discovery. Is it a mummy’s curse, or simply cruel murder?
“The Mummy of Mayfair graces readers with a novel set in the Sherlock Holmes universe but with an original, unique, and inventive twist in this vibrant tale. The Baker Street Irregulars are now young men, but the game is still afoot—and dangerous. A smashing premise and pitch-perfect!” —JAMES R BENN, bestselling author of the BILLY BOYLE WWII MYSTERIES
“A highly enjoyable look at the Great Detective’s methods from the viewpoint of his less accomplished peers.” — KIRKUS
“Despite the dark twists, this book is a heartwarming tale of two lads from “the wrong side of town” turning their lives around, forming a close-knit bond, and becoming successes. Fans will cheer them on every step of the way.” –BOOKLIST
“…Expertly crafted and satisfying Sherlockian pastiche!” –HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY REVIEWS
The book is available in bookstores, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Applebooks, etc.
Local Appearance:
Wednesday, September 25, 1 to 3 pm — Sun City Library with a FREE talk “The REAL History Behind The Mummy of Mayfair”. Free raffle and free bookbags with a book purchase while supplies last. Come for the fun, stay for the Sherlockian Quiz! Sun City Library 26982 Cherry Hills Blvd, Menifee, CA
See other tour dates and locations at JeriWesterson.com
Series Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/cCvwwPZ7Z34
Los Angeles native JERI WESTERSON–who wrote as a stringer for the Valley News, San Diego Union Tribune, and other weeklies and dailies in the Temecula/Murrieta/Menifee/Hemet area–has been a published novelist since 2008. She currently writes a Tudor series, the King’s Fool Mysteries with Henry VIII’s real court jester Will Somers as the sleuth, and a Sherlockian series called An Irregular Detective Mystery, where one of Sherlock Holmes’ former Baker Street Irregulars opens his own detecting agency. She wrote fifteen Crispin Guest Medieval Noir Mysteries for St. Martin’s and Severn House, a series nominated for thirteen national mystery awards from the Agatha to the Shamus. She also wrote several paranormal series, standalone historicals, and short stories for half a dozen anthologies. She has served as president of the SoCal Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, president and vice president for two chapters of Sisters in Crime (Orange County and Los Angeles), was a founding member of the SoCal chapter of the Historical Novel Society, and is a member of the Curious Collectors of Baker Street, a Los Angeles Sherlockian scion of the Baker Street Irregulars. See JeriWesterson.com for more.
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SHERLOCKIAN PASTICHE AND UNWRAPPING A MUMMY
Jeri Westerson has written a fifteen-book “Medieval Noir” series nominated thirteen times for several national mystery awards, a three-book gaslamp-steampunk series, a four-book paranormal series, is currently writing a Tudor mystery series, and many other series and standalone historicals. And now she enters the world of Sherlock Holmes with her second novel in An Irregular Detective Mystery series THE MUMMY OF MAYFAIR.
The Victorian era had an “Egyptomania” fad. Not only did they scramble all over themselves to get the latest piece of ancient Egyptian sculpture, canopic jar, statue, vase, jewelry, stylized wallpaper and curtains, but they also wanted that mummy for an unwrapping party where the host would, yes, unwrap the mummy and later grind it into powder as a souvenir for the party-goers.
And besides the proliferation of séances and spiritualism in general, this fascination with all things Egyptian was a craze that would take them right up to the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922, where it would only flare up again.
So when Menifee author Jeri Westerson set out to write her own Sherlockian pastiche, she wanted them to have that taste of the sensationalism of penny dreadful stories that were popular at the time. Such titles as Varney the Vampire in the Feast of Blood were pretty much de rigueur for the day. The first book in her An Irregular Detective Mystery series, THE ISOLATED SÉANCE, introduced her own characters, Tim Badger, the former Baker Street Irregular who aged out of Holmes’ Irregulars, and his friend from the East End, Ben Watson (no relation to Doctor Watson). The two opened their own detecting agency under the patronage and watchful eye of Mister Sherlock Holmes.
“Doyle did not shy away from the hint of supernatural in his stories,” says Westerson, “mostly including ‘The Adventure of the Creeping Man,’ ‘The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire,’ and, of course, ‘The Hound Of The Baskervilles.’ But unlike the sensational writers of his day, he only made it look as if it were supernatural, and gave Holmes the logic and intelligence to disprove it, even though Doyle himself was a rabid spiritualist and believer in séances.”
In Westerson’s latest book in the series, THE MUMMY OF MAYFAIR released from Severn House, her detectives are hired as security for a mummy unwrapping party given by an illustrious surgeon, when Badger and Watson make a rather grisly discovery.
Westerson explains that the first man to unwrap a mummy for entertainment purposes was surgeon Thomas Pettigrew (1791-1865). It happened in front of a group of doctors in 1821, perhaps to give the affair legitimacy, but by the 1830s it was for the shock value of ordinary folk. He lectured as he unrolled each layer of linen bandages, revealing clay amulets secreted there during the mummifying process for good luck on the deceased’s journey into his afterlife.
It was the ultimate in society street cred to be invited to one of these affairs, and there were many. And your powdered mummy? That was a throwback to medieval curatives, says Westerson, a medicine used in the Middle Ages as the latest snake oil. Despite advances in medicine throughout the long Victorian period, some Victorians also believed that a tincture made with powdered mummy was a cure-all.
So what could be better than this setting to place one’s mystery, only to have it widen the circle of suspects to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, to smuggling, and more murders that all involve Egyptomania…with Sherlock Holmes popping into the action now and again to set his young detectives on the right path with maddening hints?
“It’s only Sherlock adjacent,” says Westerson, concentrating instead on these two young men from the East End who observe Holmes and stumble through their cases, even with their own Boswell to write up their adventures, a female reporter (based on a real female reporter of the time). The books have a lot of humor, heart, a little romance, and adventure.
Westerson says she treats the Doyle canon as if it were historical fact. She says she strives to present the real history, the canon, and her fiction as a whole, writing not from the perspective of the Great Detective himself, but as an affectionate complement to it.
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