Jan Walker

Jan Walker grew up in California where she spent her summer days plopped in front of the family air conditioner reading all the Cherry Ames and Nancy Drew books she could find. She stumbled upon the Sherlock Holmes stories at her first teenage job - working as a librarian - and became a lifelong mystery enthusiast. As a successful designer, writer and artist, her Holmesian graphics and Asian pen-and-ink drawings have been included in several gallery showings, while her costume designs have dressed numerous performing groups and appeared in many theatrical productions in the western US. She and her husband, Steve, have a family of nine children and live in Arizona, where she still slips away to a cool spot to burrow into the pages of her latest literary purchase.

"The Singular Case of the Duplicate Holmes" started with a question: How would Holmes manage an investigation if the client were not a helpless and despairing woman, but a seemingly-traditional gentlewomen with a distinctly independent, perceptive and non-traditional mindset?