Move to kells was elementary for sherlock holmes novelist geri

Kells-based author Geri Schear launched her new book, entitled 'A Biased Judgement' on 24th October.

The novel considers what might have been had Sherlock Holmes lived, and what role a man of his talents might have played in the turbulent events of the late 19th century.

As Schear decided that the telling of the tale belonged to Holmes himself, she used a diary format set in 1897.

Born in Dublin to an Irish mother and an English father, Geri Schear has lived in Kells for the past four years and has been a Holmes enthusiast since the age of seven when her grandmother gave her a copy of 'The Hound Of The Baskervilles'.

The writing of 'A Biased Judgement', however, wasn't always part of Schear's literary plan.

'I didn’t want to write a Sherlock Holmes story, but I had this idea just niggling at me and I knew I had to write it out of my system,' she said. 'It took me about two years because I kept leaving it to do other things, but eventually the idea took hold and I just couldn’t leave it alone.'

While it is a fictional novel, the diary is deeply embedded in the historical context of the time, according to Schear.

'One of the things I tried to do is look at the way the First World War was inevitable,' she said. 'Even though the story is set in the 1890s, the elements of what would eventually lead the world into war were already in existence.'

Throughout the narrative, the author considers how many warning signs Sherlock Holmes and his brother Mycroft – sometimes depicted as the more intelligent, but lazier of the two – might have recognised in the build-up to war.

'These people who were supposed to be so brilliant and so involved, especially Mycroft, in what was happening in the world. It seemed to me that there would be a hint in their minds that there was something inevitable,' she said. 'They might not have known exactly, because we're still 20 years away from the outbreak of war.'

Having lived in Dublin previously, Geri Schear’s new home in Kells is proving to be a positive influence on her writing. 'It is very easy to get distracted when you have the city outside but Kells is quiet and I've been able to focus completely on my work,' she said. She hosted a book reading at The Book Market in Kells last Friday afternoon.

With her new book a regular feature in Amazon's top-three bestsellers list for Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Schear is already hard at work on a sequel, tentatively entitled 'Sherlock Holmes And The Other Woman'.