Soon Sherlock too would drift off, cradled in his own misery and, one would hope, repentance.
Mycroft would be the only one awake.
England was about to be shaken. He knew it. And he insisted to his poor, broken body that it must remain alive to try to prevent that earthquake from doing inestimable damage to all the proverbial and literal sleepers, especially those for whom he cared so much.
Eventually, most likely sooner rather than later, he would have to resign his post as special consul, if for no other reason than it would be unfair to be marked as a successor, only to drop dead before the Honorable Edward Cardwell had even left office.
But for tonight, the stove was on and the kettle was boiling. And Mycroft would sit alone at the table for four and stretch out his legs and drink his strong, hot tea, along with the herbs that Ai Lin had put in his hand, and he would taste the bittersweet comfort of having a place and a purpose in the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE AUTHORS WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE TWO INTREPID women whose invaluable help brought this work to fruition:
Deborah Morales, part cheerleader, part den mother, irrepressible and irreplaceable manager and friend; and Miranda Jewess, our brilliant editor who cleans up after us, instructs and admonishes us, and makes us sound much smarter than we deserve.
We would also like to thank the always-professional and talented Titan team, whom we’ve come to rely on: Nick Landau, Vivian Cheung, Laura Price, Sam Matthews, Julia Lloyd, Paul Gill, Chris McLane, Lydia Gittins, Philippa Ward, and the lovely Katharine Carroll.
KAREEM ABDUL - JABBAR
AT 7' 2" TALL, KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR IS A HUGE HOLMESIAN in every way. An English and History graduate of UCLA, he first read the Doyle stories early in his basketball career, and adapted Holmes’s powers of observation to the game in order to gain an edge over his opponents. His first novel featuring Mycroft Holmes was published in 2015; it received multiple starred reviews and was lauded as a story that “rivals Conan Doyle himself ” by the New York Times and a “triumphant adult fiction debut” by Publishers Weekly.
He played basketball for the Milwaukee Bucks (1969–1975) and the Los Angeles Lakers (1975–1989), scoring 38,387 points to become the National Basketball Association’s all-time leading scorer. Kareem was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995. Since retiring, he has been an actor, a producer, a coach, an international speaker, and a New York Times best-selling author with writings focused on history. His previous books include Coach Wooden and Me—Our Fifty Year Friendship, Becoming Kareem—Growing Up On and Off the Court, Writings on the Wall—Searching for A New Equality, Beyond Black and White, Giant Steps, Kareem, Black Profiles in Courage, A Season on the Reservation, Brothers in Arms, and On the Shoulders of Giants—My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance. His children’s books include Streetball Crew—Sasquatch in the Paint, Stealing the Game, and What Color is My World?—The Lost History of African-American Inventors, which won the NAACP Award for “Best Children’s Book.” In 2016 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USA’s highest civilian honor, by former President Barack Obama. Currently he is Chairman of the Skyhook Foundation and a columnist for the Guardian newspaper as well as a cultural critic for the Hollywood Reporter.
ANNA WATERHOUSE
A PROFESSIONAL SCREENWRITER AND SCRIPT CONSULTANT, Anna Waterhouse has worked alongside such legends as Robert Towne, Tom Cruise, and producer Paula Wagner. She has consulted for premium cable miniseries and basic cable series, and co-produced a feature-length documentary for HBO. She was supervising producer and co-writer (with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) of the critically acclaimed feature-length documentary On the Shoulders of Giants (Netflix and Showtime), which won Best Documentary NAACP Image Award and two Telly awards. She is currently writing and co-producing a limited eight-part TV series alongside multiple-Oscar winners Robert Towne, Mike Medavoy, and Mel Gibson. She has written several how-to screenwriting seminars for Writer’s Digest and has taught screenwriting at both Chapman University in Orange, California, and at the University of Southern California.
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