Improbable Press Blog

Everything’s a story. Or it can be. When the writing’s resisting me I do my best to remember that.You may hate prompts from others, many do, but I’d be curious how you feel about prompting yourself. Walking around and looking and wondering what story that and that can tell.To paraphrase Sherlock, once you plant an idea, it’s awfully hard to remove. Maybe we need to let more ideas plant themselves, especially the ones we think we can't use.Sure, there are some things I’ll probably never write. A Moriarty-centric romance. Something without redemption. Not going there.But sometimes it’s been delightful to...

In 1886 - a year before A Study in Scarlet launched the fictional career of Sherlock Holmes - Fergus Hume's The Mystery of the Hansom Cab was published. From its small beginnings as a 'schilling shocker', this crime novel set in Marvellous Melbourne became an international phenomenon, selling half a million copies. While Hume did not invent characters as enduring as Holmes and Watson, the publication of Hansom Cab and its subsequent unheard-of success made the future success of the Holmes stories (which might otherwise have started and ended with the Beeton’s Christmas Annual) and the whole detective genre a...

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...