Dominic Sandbrook

Is the art for me more than that, Don?

But go on.

Exactly.

But it is because he'd been so enormously successful with Holmes, hadn't he?

And you can absolutely understand why there comes a point where you think, I have to kill him because I am more than this.

If you're Arthur Conan Doyle, you think, I am not Sherlock Holmes.

I am a real man and I have real talents and I can write real stories.

And Holmes has become bigger than he is.

So you absolutely see why you would kill someone like that.

But then you have a few more years of maturity and mortgage paying, I guess.

And you do think, do you know what?

Maybe it's great that I created someone who's bigger than me.

You know, maybe this is the greatest thing I've ever done and ever will do.

And you bring him back.

Turns out I was spockled along.

As a writer, particularly as a writer of serials, what is my setup?

And when you've got something like The Thirsty Murder Club, I've got four people who are very, very different to each other.

I've got four different voices, and I know everywhere I can go, I can take whatever story you want to give me, and I know that I have an engine that will take me wherever I want to go.

The envy I have for Conan Doyle here is exactly what you're saying, which is he's got this unbelievable sort of omnipotent hero in the middle of this book who would become absolutely unbearable, actually, if you're just writing stories.

a story from his perspective.