Women Marched Outside 221B Baker Street

There is a new movie making its debut - Suffragette, about those in Britain who lead the fight to give women the right to vote. This remarkable process played in the background of Sherlock Holmes - The Golden Years by Kim Krisco.

Most Sherlock Holmes adventures do not bring in historical background to any great degree. So, this is one area where Sherlock Holmes - The Golden Years adds an extra richness. Having done some research on the Suffragette movement in Britain, I have an appreciation for the courage of the women who lead the movement.

While the women’s suffrage movement in the United Kingdom began about 1872, with the formation of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, it didn’t make the daily headlines until the early 1900’s when the movement became more militant and violent.

WWI caused a temporary halt to suffrage activity and, in 1918, the Representation of the Peoples Act granted women limited voting rights. However, it wasn’t until 1928 when all women in Britain gained full voting rights.

Sherlock Holmes’s made a good attempt at going into retirement in Sussex Downs around 1905. He traded his lodgings at 221B Baker Street for a traditional thatched-roof stone cottage, and took up bee keeping. Indeed, he wrote a book on apiculture entitled: A Practical Handbook of Bee Culture with Some Observations Upon Segregation of the Queen. Most appropriate, as Holmes was an expert at keeping himself personally “segregated” from women – as it were. However, in his trips to the city, he could not help but confront some formidable ladies in the streets, as the suffrage movement was in full swing by 1905.

One of the key figures in the suffrage movement was Emmeline Pankhurst, who is one of several infamous historical characters that can be found in the new collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures. In the Curse of the Black Feather, Holmes and Watson meet Emmeline Pankhurst at a party where Watson has the dubious honour of escorting her to dinner.  Holmes, however, had a much more fascinating dinner partner that evening – Irene Adler, “the woman” who mysteriously reappears his life and haunts him in all five of the stories in this historically accurate 345-page collection.

In Sherlock Holmes-The Golden Years the reader gets all the mystery and magic of Holmes at his best, interesting real-life historical characters, and a rich and highly accurate historical background, all of which adds great depth to the stories.

In Sherlock Holmes-The Golden Years the reader gets all the mystery and magic of Holmes at his best, interesting real-life historical characters, and a rich and highly accurate historical background, all of which adds great depth to the stories.

You can buy Sherlock Holmes-The Golden Years, as a book or E-book, at Amazon and other good bookstores.