‘Sherlock Holmes: Gone in the Fog’ culmination of life long dream

ALBANY — With the completion of his first novel, Albany resident Ray Ziemecki was not only able to celebrate one of literary history’s most beloved characters, he was able to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a published author at the tender age of 78.

Entitled “Sherlock Holmes: Gone in the Fog,” Ziemecki’s first novel finds the well-known sleuth, now an elderly man, facing one of his toughest challenges, a challenge Ziemecki feels is somewhat unique in the world of Holmes stories.

“It’s a different Sherlock story,” said Ziemecki. “It’s different because this time Watson has to take the lead.”

Ziemecki said he has been drawn to the character of Sherlock Holmes for many years, and felt that even though the character is one of the most popular figures in the history of literature, there were still a few more tales to tell.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created the character of Holmes, along with that of Holmes’ partner in crime-solving Dr. John Watson, penned 56 stories and four novels about the character and on at least two occasions tried to retire the character, mush to the dislike of the Holmes-crazy public in England.

Since Doyle’s time, several authors have added their entries into the characters’ lore and along the way Holmes has also become the subject of countless movies, plays and television shows. In fact, with three currently running Sherlock-based televisions shows and an active movie franchise centered around the character still going strong, Sherlock is as popular as ever.

“He is really one of the greatest literary characters of all time,” said Ziemecki. “People adore him. He’s not really a lovable character either if you think about it. He has a strong, let’s say, disregard for women. He is quite conceited. He lacks social graces. Most people love a character they can relate to, that they see themselves in. Well, there’s no one who is conceivably like him. I really don’t know why they love him. But they do.”

And while Ziemecki certainly falls into the category of a Holmes fan, his favorite character in Doyle’s original canon is Watson, who has always been a perfect foil to the mercurial crime fighter.

“I’m much more taken with Dr. Watson,” said Ziemecki. “He’s kind of like the unsung hero. He helps Holmes in many ways and never gets or seeks credit.”

The Watson character was actually something that helped inspire and form Ziemecki’s novel, which turned out to be more difficult than he expected.

Ziemecki said that the process began with him thinking about mystery novels in general and wondering how someone like Doyle or countless other authors could write so many different stories without repeating themselves.

“At first it was a little bit of a lark,” said Ziemecki. “The thing that really motivated me was, I thought to myself, ‘how can you write so many different stories and not repeat the same plots? How can you come up with an original plot?’ That was the idea that really challenged me.”

The second challenge was trying to fit his new plot idea to Sherlock Holmes and have it be a unique Sherlock Holmes story that hadn’t been told before.

“All sorts of writers have written Sherlock Holmes stories,” Ziemecki said. “But as far as I knew at the time, nobody had written about Sherlock in his later years. Well, after I got started I found out that Doyle actually had written one story about Sherlock in his 60s, after WWI. That was a challenge because that was the time slot for this story, so I had to write around that story.”

Despite that challenge, Ziemecki feels he’s written a story worthy of the character and thus far the overwhelming majority of feedback he’s received since he published the book has been positive. According to the book’s Amazon page, the work has received quite a few user reviews.

He’s already hard at work on his second book, another Holmes work titled “Holmes and Watson: The Twilight Years.” Currently the work consists of several smaller stories that will either remain as individual pieces or Ziemecki will tie them all together somehow to form a cohesive novel.

“I’ve got over 100 pages done on that first draft,” said Ziemecki. “I don’t know if you’d call it a novel or a collection of short stories yet. I’m working to tie it all together.”

Ziemecki hopes to have the work finished soon and available to the public by next year. Like his first book, his second outing will be available through Amazon and through Smashwords.

Ziemecki is an Albany resident who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. He is a retired Marine who came to Albany 50 years ago when he was stationed at Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany. He has been married to Nancy Ziemecki for 16 years.