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📣 Greetings, fellow lovers of fiction — and mystery in particular!

🔍 Edited Monograph:

Why Sherlock?
Why would a poor Black boy love Sherlock Holmes?

What was the appeal?

Why mystery?

Why admire a man who stood beside — and sometimes behind — the great colonizers of human history?

After all, Watson was a medical doctor and a soldier in Afghanistan.
England had invaded the Middle East, India, Africa, and lord knows where else.

But Holmes…
He was a loner.
An odd man out.
His own man.

A savant in a world that had no real understanding of that condition.

He was damaged — yet laser-focused in his pursuit of something resembling justice.
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Selfish, yes. But a selfishness that benefited many.

He was loyal to the one true person who let him be who he was.​
He was a hero who didn’t pursue the title, nor even see himself as one.

Though sometimes dismissive of social rules and rank, he was a man of honor.
And that struck me.

I was raised in a time when there were few — if any — Black heroes.
Certainly not in the mainstream media.
So I had a choice: accept invisibility… or become selective.
Pull wisdom and wonder from what was available.

Holmes rarely judged someone solely by status or wealth.​
Good and evil knew no social gates — and Holmes knew this all too well.

He appealed to me as a character.
As a detective.
As a thinker who didn’t rely on violence to solve his problems.

He didn’t seek praise.
But he earned respect.
He made things better.
​And aside from Watson, he survived — and eventually thrived — on his own terms.

That mattered to me more back then. Because sometimes I felt alone.

I admired the mood.
I admired the man.
But most of all…
I loved unraveling the mysteries.

Best,​
​Alex Simmons

PS: If you haven't picked up your free preview of the first two scenes, feel free to click right here.