Sherlock Holmes and The Case of The Bulgarian Codex

Acknowledgements

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. To help reflect the atmosphere of those faraway days I have here and there taken favourite words and phrasing straight from the canon.

The superb historian Judith Rowbotham at Nottingham Trent University whose researches on Victorian and Edwardian crime and its historical context offer detective-fiction writers wonderful tools of the trade. I particular appreciate the attention to detail in going through the several re-writes of the Bulgarian Codex and making suggestions, most of which I took up.

Alun Hill FCIJ for running a sharp eye over both text and layout.

Ditto Ann Leander, formerly of the Bangkok Writers group, for running a further eye over the text and making valuable suggestions.

And Robert and Aileen Ribeiro, for going through with such a knowledgeable eye (as befits the owners of the house built by famous Holmes and Watson illustrator Walter Paget) as they did earlier with Sherlock Holmes And The Dead Boer At Scotney Castle (MX Publishing 2012).

Andrew in faraway Russia for mapping Holmes’s and Watson’s journeys to and within Bulgaria. (There are plans to translate the Bulgarian Codex into Russian)

Dim & Distant Rare and Second-hand Bookshop. Heathfield, East Sussex TN21 8HU. Dave Berry’s hidden treasure of a bookshop. Don’t miss the chance to pick and choose wonderful books, including bargains outside the shop. A sister store opened in Eastbourne Summer 2012.

And to the following for their valuable research assistance:

V&A Theatre & Performance Enquiry Service, a superb, friendly resource on matters Victorian and Edwardian. For example, ‘We have checked our archives and relevant reference works and the earliest evidence we can trace of Vesta Tilley performing as a soldier is during World War One. In particular, she had two characters - ‘Tommy in the Trench’ and ‘Jack Tar Home from Sea’ - which formed part of her recruitment drive. This was accompanied by singing suitable topical songs such as The Army of Today’s Alright , Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Marries a Soldier , and In Dear Old England’s Name. She visited hospitals and sold War Bonds, as well as encouraging men at her shows to enlist (during the early part of the war before conscription was put in place).’

Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS, Director-General, The Royal Photographic Society, for technical advice on the advances in cameras and photography in the late-19^th and early-20^th Centuries, viz ‘When abroad, Watson, being a doctor and probably a keen amateur photographer, would most likely have developed his plate in his hotel room and then made a contact photograph from it which he would have sent to the Strand by post, or perhaps had a fellow traveller hand-carry it back to London.’

Jeff Sobel, son of Eli Sobel, my favourite Dean of Honours at UCLA, for technical advice on contemporary weaponry, especially the very unpleasant Apache revolver.

For friendly and encouraging reviews of my recent novel, Sherlock Holmes And The Dead Boer At Scotney Castle:

Felicia Carparelli in faraway Chicago, who writes under the pseudonym ‘maurice chevalier’ (quote: the Dead Boer contains ‘Lots of action and plot devices and a villain who Holmes says rivals Moriarty. This is a healthy Sherlock pastiche with many commendable elements.’)

Ditto Britain’s former Foreign Secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind who emailed, ‘Dear Tim Symonds, just to say that I have just finished reading The Dead Boer at Scotney Castle. I greatly enjoyed it and found it a great yarn! It kept one guessing right to the end which all good crime novels should do. Sherlock Holmes (and Conan Doyle) would have been impressed!’

And to Tracey Snape for her review of the Dead Boer in the Association of British Investigators Journal (‘cleverly written in the style of Conan Doyle’ and ‘well worth a read for lovers of the inventive art of detection’).

Google and Amazon and Wikipedia for all the research I needed at my very fingertips even seated on logs in the ancient woods of East Sussex.

Last and certainly not least, my partner Lesley Abdela for her happy involvement in both the Dead Boer and the Bulgarian Codex, and her wonderful journalist’s eye on my plots.