It all started one chilly morning while keeping Sarah Lotz
company outside the Metropole Hotel in Brighton, while she sucked some nicotine
into her lungs, during the World Fantasy Convention in 2013.
I was just an innocent bystander, watching others smoking
and trying to pretend that I wasn’t freezing my arse off. I hadn’t seen Sarah
in ages and wanted to catch up – she’s always a good laugh and probably one of
my favourite writerly types, so she’s worth enduring a little cold weather for
and at least I didn’t get frostbite. Bear in mind that I’m South African so
anything under 20°C is considered cold and the weather that weekend in Brighton
was well below that.
Somewhere along the line David Thomas Moore, the bearded,
crazy, genius, joined the conversation. Sarah said something about my writing
being twisted and that I was sick in the head. In any other circles that would
probably be considered an insult, but not in the horror writing world. Someone
saying that about you in the horror world is probably the greatest compliment a
writer can get. I duly blushed. David had a strange evil glint in his eyes as
he turned to me and asked if I’d be interested in writing a story for his
Sherlock Holmes anthology. I thought he’d lost his mind or had a few too many
pints at the bar. Who in their right mind would ask me to write a story about Holmes?
I think I may have had a few too many glasses of wine at the
bar and said yes. Because, hey, I love Sherlock! I did, however, add a disclaimer
and warned him that, as Sarah had pointed out, it was likely to be bit twisted.
He seemed pleased by that idea, which left me wondering just how twisted was I
allowed to be … I had a feeling he wouldn’t have a problem with my writing
something as twisted as I could possibly get.
By the end of the convention I’d convinced myself that there
wasn’t a snowballs chance in hell that I would ever hear from Mr Moore again,
but a few months later there was an email in my inbox from David asking if I
was still interested. I almost shat myself. I was now actually going to have to
produce something that was worthy of Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. I
knew there was no point in trying to reproduce the original stories and plus
that wasn’t what David wanted. I also realised that an editor wouldn’t ask a
horror writer for a story unless he wanted a horror story, so that’s what I set
out to do. I also wanted to have a bit of fun with it.
Pretoria is my home town and Mamalodi, the township,
informal settlement, ghetto, or whatever you want to call it is only about a
ten minute drive from my front door. It’s the type of setting that most people
living in first world countries would find alien, but is common place anywhere
in Africa and other developing countries. I wanted to put Sherlock and Watson
outside of the readers comfort zone and away from the normal settings. Pretoria
and Mamalodi are also not the typical settings you find in most South African
novels. Most South African authors seem to set their books in Johannesburg or
Cape Town or in more exotic locations, but I prefer to set my stories in places
that I know well.
Mamalodi may not be as dangerous as some of the other
informal settlements that they have in Johannesburg, but it has a character all
of its own and makes for an interesting backdrop for Holmes and Watson and a
muti murder.
I’m incredibly grateful for having had the chance to spend
some time with Holmes and Watson and for working with David. It’s been one hell
of a fun rollercoaster ride. I can’t wait to see what else David and the
Abaddon team do next.
***
Joan
De La Haye
(joandelahaye.com) writes horror and some very twisted thrillers. She
invariably wakes up in the middle of the night, because she’s
figured out yet another freaky way to mess with her already screwed
up characters.
Joan
is interested in some seriously weird stuff. That’s probably also
one of the reasons she writes horror.
Her
novels, Shadows
and Requiem
in E Sharp,
as well as her novella, Oasis,
are published by Fox Spirit (foxspirit.co.uk).
You
can find Joan on her website and follow her on Twitter @JoanDeLaHaye.
She is the author of The Rich Man's Hand in the new Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets anthology, out now from Abaddon Books!
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