Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Explores the Origins of Sherlock’s Brother in Mycroft Holmes
Author Photo by IconomyAs an NBA rookie for the Milwaukee Bucks, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was given a set of Sherlock Holmes stories to read on his first road trip with the team. He found himself enthralled by the detective’s powers of observation, taking cues from the character to “exploit weaknesses in [his] opponents” on the court. Now 46 years later, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and bestselling author has imagined the origins of Sherlock’s older brother in a new novel.
Co-authored with Anna Waterhouse, Mycroft Holmes finds Mycroft engaged and working for the British Secretary of State for War. When his fiancée Georgiana hears news of spirits enticing children to their deaths in her childhood home of Trinidad, she panics and travels to the Caribbean. Mycroft convinces his best friend Cyrus, a man of African descent also raised in Trinidad, to journey to the island nation as well, catalyzing a mysterious chain of events.
To celebrate the release of Mycroft Holmes, out tomorrow from Titan Books, Abdul-Jabbar gave Paste the scoop on writing the novel, exploring Trinidadian folklore and Mycroft’s next adventure.
Paste: What sparked your imagination to write Mycroft Holmes?
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: I’ve been a long-time reader of Sherlock Holmes, ever since my rookie year in the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks. Someone gave me a two-volume set, and I was hooked. But all along, I wondered about Sherlock’s older brother Mycroft. We know from Sherlock that [Mycroft] was not just in the British government, but that, at times, he was the British government. It got me wondering what this man, of whom nearly nothing is written, actually did. Where he began. His origin story, in terms of his career. Did he have friends? Was his heart ever broken? What turned him into a recluse? That sort of thing.
Paste: You previously co-wrote the documentary On the Shoulders of Giants with Anna Waterhouse. What made you want to team up again to write this novel?