The entry begins:
The Misplaced Physician is book #3 in my An Irregular Detective Mystery series, about a former Baker Street Irregular – one of Sherlock Holmes’ hired street urchins, his eyes and ears of London – who aged out of that group and decided to become a detective like the guv. Tim Badger is the one with enough chutzpah to believe he can do it, and when he met a black bloke from the East End named Ben Watson, he deemed it Fate that they should work together, but it wasn’t until Mr. Holmes himself stepped in to sponsor them that they started to succeed. In this book, Doctor Watson has been kidnapped and Holmes is out of the country and can’t be reached. So it’s up to Badger and Watson to save the day! But if they can’t, that’s the end of the Badger & Watson Detecting Agency.Visit Jeri Westerson's website.
Actually, I’d rather have a television series, preferably a British production perhaps on Masterpiece Mystery or BritBox.
Because I write cinematically – that is, with dialogue that actors love to speak (my audiobook narrator says this is true!), and a sense of place and action, it flows nicely. The books are all easily translated to a script. They’re moody, accessible, and drawn in such a way that readers know exactly what they are “seeing” and experiencing. And because it is a Victorian cozy mystery, there is no bad language and no sex (but there is romancing). This is in keeping with the canon of the Doyle material. I treat it as if they are historical documents and I don’t deviate from them or their sensibilities. Hence, the “swearing” is “bloomin’” this and “ruddy” that. With some “By Joves!” and “Great Heavens!” thrown in as well. Not that the London Badger & Watson travel through isn’t a bit gritty at times. It can be, depending on what they investigate. But for the most part, they stay strictly Victorian and could be seen as an extension of the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes adventures.
Tim Badger is a man of action and guts, but despite his tough childhood, he always has a smile on his face. That’s why I might choose an actor like Callum Woodhouse (Tristan Farnon from All Creatures Great and Small) for him. He has that playful, carefree, and sometimes irresponsible sensibility for Tim Badger. As long as he can go full Cockney.
As for Ben Watson, he’s a little tougher to cast...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Veil of Lies.
The Page 69 Test: Serpent in the Thorns.
The Page 69 Test: The Demon's Parchment.
My Book, The Movie: The Demon's Parchment.
The Page 69 Test: Troubled Bones.
The Page 69 Test: Blood Lance.
The Page 69 Test: Shadow of the Alchemist.
The Page 69 Test: Cup of Blood.
The Page 69 Test: The Silence of Stones.
The Page 69 Test: A Maiden Weeping.
Q&A with Jeri Westerson.
The Page 69 Test: The Deadliest Sin.
My Book, The Movie: The Misplaced Physician
--Marshal Zeringue
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