Far From Holmes

Brighton author and psychologist Mick Finlay has written a book about Sherlock Holmes’ rival – a working class detective called Arrowood. Even before publication it was slated for television adaptation, with Kathy Burke signed up as executive producer. JENNY MARK-BELL finds out more.

- Jenny Mark-Bell

SARTORIALLY at least, he’s not about to upstage Benedict Cumberbatch, whose television detective swishes elegantly between crime scenes in a £1,000 Belstaff coat.

But gin-swilling William Arrowood – the brainchild of Brighton author and academic Mick Finlay – is Holmes’ intellectual equal. Indeed, the lesser-known Victorian detective possesses many qualities that his contemporary does not. Mick, who was inspired to create the character after rereading Conan Doyle’s short stories, says: “I wondered, if there were other detectives at the time, what they would have felt about him. Some of them might have been quite jealous of his success.”

In many ways, Arrowood is Holmes’ antithesis. He’s empathetic and soft-hearted, for a start – even if his temper gets the better of him sometimes (especially when his gout is playing up). And hearing the great detective’s name almost always provokes an outburst. Holmes’ upper echelon clients are traded for South London slum-dwellers – while one detective is rewarded handsomely for his work and lauded at the highest levels of government, the other wears ill-fitting shoes and an air of despondency.

The two detectives never meet in Arrowood, the first in a series which, before it was even published, was snapped up for TV adaptation. But Holmes’ hawk-like profile and adamantine mind loom over the action – particularly when police consult him on Arrowood’s case, much to the latter’s fury. Arrowood sneers that Holmes is merely “a deductive agent” while he is himself “an emotional agent”.