Improbable Press Blog — Stuff Sherlock would know

Happy 2017 from IP to all our readers! And we think it never hurts to start the new year with ideas of how to poison someone... Today's post is by guest blogger, Jane Canaway, a freelance writer from Melbourne, who visited The Alnwick Garden in Northumberland, UK, last year.  The original Alnwick garden dates from the 18th century. Canon Sherlock wouldn't have visited the poison garden, which wasn't established until 2005, but he would have been very familiar with the plants it contains. *** The Alnwick Poison Garden by Jane Canaway It’s all a bit Harry Potter, with the skull...

Writing about a city you don’t live in can be challenging, especially when the characters you write about are very steeped in a particular metropolis, the way that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are so associated with London. It’s challenging, too, when you might be writing of Holmes and Watson in the London of the 19th Century. London remains very much the sum of its history, but new layers are always being placed over the old, and some of its past was torn down and obliterated in various building booms over the centuries. The tricks of writing about London (past...

So, here's the thing about Improbable Press' blog. It's going to be anything, everything, but never nothing. Book reviews that'll tingle your Sherlock writer/readers senses. Editorial opinions on All Teh Things. Calls for submissions. And pee. Well, not just pee, but weird stuff like pee and the rainbow colors in which it can come. Because you can pee blue if you take certain supplements, pee purple if your kidneys are out of whack, and you know what? That's just strange and interesting and you also know what? Who's to say Sherlock or John wouldn't know this unusual fact and through...

I’ve never seen a citizen’s arrest in real life – only on television. Specifically, on American television. Perhaps it popped up on UK and Australian shows from time to time, but it always struck me as an American thing, and even then I wondered – is it real? Can non-police people arrest suspected criminals and, if so, what are the limitations? Naturally, while one day seeing the expression arise in an episode of a show I can’t even recall, I once more thought – is a citizen’s arrest a thing? If so, is it a thing in Australia as well...