Roberto de Marinis

I stumbled into the world of authorship almost by chance when I began writing my first book without any expectations. As it turned out, that initial work was well-received by several friends, and so others followed.

At first, I chose Sherlock Holmes as my reference character, starting with a fundamentalist saga consisting of four titles (and related collections). Later, I wrote more classic plots, filling the "gap" left by ACD when he decided to "kill" the Detective. These three years (from 1891 to 1894) were "filled" with five titles seamlessly embedded into the Conan Doyle timeline.

A separate series revolves around the character of Irene Adler, to whom my friends Darya Fariba and Consuelo Lopez, and I have dedicated two books; a third one will most likely follow.

The Sherlockian area of my writings is rounded out by six novellas and a collection of three stories about the "Baker Street Irregulars," titled after them.

Special mention should go to the titles about Sherlock Holmes as a teenager (pre-Canon) and those set post-Canon. In the latter, particularly, a series is introduced featuring a very peculiar partner whose identity I leave to the readers to uncover (after all, what kind of detectives would you be otherwise?).

Linked to the above is another series focusing on Sherilee Holmes (Sherlock's daughter? Read and decide for yourselves) and another about her daughter and granddaughters, set respectively after World War II and in modern times.

A chapter apart is a series that retraces the footsteps of the character as written by ACD. Here, the plots are the same as the original novels but have been restructured to make them more fluid and readable, a gesture I hope will appeal particularly to new fans of the world's most famous Detective.

All the novels have been crafted with meticulous attention to their geo-historical context, down to the smallest details. This research even led to the uncovering of a true "historical inconsistency" made by Conan Doyle himself concerning the story of Irene Adler, as described in the book about her (a "spin-off" of the classic series co-written with a partner).

For the sheer number of plots centered around this character, I believe I am among the pastiche authors with the highest number of novels dedicated to Sherlock Holmes.

I then moved on to writing novels of entirely different nature and genres. The first was The Girl from Ashkelon, a dystopian work. This was followed by books about Rodney Caine, an archaeologist (The Caine Manuscript and The Legacy of the Korosci), and the "Vernian" series, which begins with Return to the Center of the Earth and The Sixth Continent.

I am always working on new titles. Writing, I might say, helps "air out the brain," and it's something I do primarily for the love of stories and imagination (which, alas, seems to be lacking in many nowadays) and nothing else—least of all for personal visibility, which, considering my profession, I fear I already have in abundance.

It would be a pleasure to know whether what I’ve had the good fortune to tell captures even a fraction of the enthusiasm with which it was done and which permeates everything I continue to create in this magical literary universe.

Thank you to those who have read these stories and to those who will.