Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Casper Hedron

What inspired you to write “Queen of Spades”?

Hedron: In 'The Adventure of the Empty House' written by Conan Doyle, Holmes tells Watson that the case he had built against the Moriarty gang had not gone as well as he had hoped; three of the Professor's very dangerous lieutenants were still free, and had sworn revenge against him – hence his pretending to be dead for three years. Whilst it is easy to guess that one of these three villains was Colonel Moran, we get nothing on the remaining two. There's also the fact that Professor Moriarty had a brother, who outlived him and was having some sort of feud with Watson. How many people know that? The Professor's brother almost never gets mentioned or appears in any Sherlock Holmes adaptations. What a waste! I decided that I wanted to tell the story of the Moriarty gang in the aftermath of their leader's demise, with a particular focus upon the three dangerous lieutenants that Holmes mentions in the Empty House.

The first two would obviously be Sebastian Moran and the Professor's brother (Colonel James Moriarty – yep, the Professor apparently shares the same first name as his brother). But what about the third? Well with two guys I figured I should at least make the third a lady, even though Holmes said it was three men that wanted him dead. I was a fan of the Enola Holmes books written by Nancy Springer (not the films, which bore little similarity to the books they were supposedly adapting), and also a manga named Young Miss Holmes, by Kaoru Shintani. The former featured Sherlock's younger sister, whilst the latter starred his niece. Drawing inspiration from these, I decided to make my third villain protagonist and main viewpoint character be Professor Moriarty's illegitimate daughter, and named her Ada Sun. She was also partly inspired by the character of Lucy Hebron Munro, from the Conan Doyle story 'The Adventure of the Yellow Face', in that both Lucy and Ada are mixed race characters in a time period where that was much less accepted than it is today.

How did you come up with the names of your main characters?

Hedron: Ada Sun, the main POV character, was named for Ada Lovelace and Sun Zi, two historical mathematicians, as a nod towards Professor Moriarty being a maths teacher. Also, in the Enola Holmes books, the main character Enola would often remark that her name spelled backwards was the word 'Alone'. I liked to imagine a hypothetical meeting between her and Ada, in which Ada remarks that her name, backwards, is still just Ada (being a palindrome).

The other main character is of course Professor James Moriarty's younger brother, Colonel James Moriarty. In order to avoid confusion, I gave him a middle name which he prefers to use instead, that being Artemis. This was a reference to the fictional Irish criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl, created by author Eoin Colfer (Moriarty itself being an Irish name).

Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?

Hedron: I tried very, very hard to stick to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes canon, wanting my book to be something that could have taken place within the universe he created, as opposed to the many Holmes stories and adaptations that are AUs or re-imaginings. Queen of Spades is full of references to and characters from the original Holmes cases and stories, including some extremely obscure ones. Whilst Professor Moriarty's brother is obscure, there are still lots of Sherlock Holmes fans that know about him. But how many know and remember Lucy? Or the Swiss messenger from the Final Problem that lured Watson away? Or Inspector Patterson, the Scotland Yard detective that gets mentioned exactly once, and yet was important enough for Holmes to trust him with the evidence to bring down the Moriarty gang? I worked very hard on this book, and it really saddens me that no one has read it, that there is no interest in it or any sequels. Please just give it a chance!

Are there any tips that you would like to share with other aspiring authors?

Hedron:  I would say aspiring authors don't need any tips to become successful authors. Things I would say they do need are; 1: to be physically attractive, 2: to be likeable, 3: to have many friends, and 4: to be rich and/or famous. The more of these things you have, the more successful you will be. If you don't have any of them (like me), then your writing is irrelevant. You could write the best book in the world, and no one will read it or care. Having actual talent and writing good stories is a nice bonus to an author, a cherry on top, but is also completely unnecessary. These days you don't even need to write a single word to be a successful bestselling author. You can just have a ghost writer or AI write your book, and a publishing firm with good advertising to sing your praises, and you will get tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of five star glowing reviews and movie deals.

What is your favorite book, genre, and/or author?

Hedron: I loved the original run of the Enola Holmes books, but the more recent follow-up made to cash-in on the success of the films were pretty bad. The Nevermoor books by Jessica Townsend were hands down my favourite book series, until Book #4, Silverborn, came out, and I realised it was ghost written (and just kinda bad IMO). The Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy were my second favourite, and will probably shift up to being my number one if the Nevermoor books continue to be ghost written. They're still going strong with Phase 3 being released, and unlike a lot of fans I loved Phase 2. For older books, I'm a huge fan of Frank Baum and his Land of Oz series.

What are you working on next?

Hedron: Currently I am attempting to write Book #4 of my Clockwise series, a prequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The penultimate book in the series, called Libra of Oz, it is the book I was most looking forward to writing when I started the series, being the most ambitious one of the lot. Sadly I am struggling tremendously with it, as no one has read any of my Oz books, not even book reviewers who promised to do so. It's starting to feel like I'm cursed, and that some malign supernatural force is preventing anyone from reading my work. If Heather Barksdale actually does read Queen of Spades and posts a review of it, along with this interview, then I guess the curse will finally be broken! If that happens, then perhaps I will regain my enthusiasm for writing, and will be able to finish my next book.

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