The Mystery of Social Media

A former colleague of mine would be extremely amused by Roger K's video review of No Police Like Holmes, part 2 (see below), in which he comments that the extensive use of social media in the book my turn off some readers unfamiliar with the Twitterverse, etc.

The aforementioned former colleague knows that I was dragged kicking and screaming into this brave new world, and only went along out of a sense of professionalism. I felt that I needed to learn these tools to do my job. I'm still not up to speed, but I'm working at it.

So it is with my narrator, Jeff Cody, with the difference that he is far younger than I am and it probably comes more easily to him. As public relations director of a small Catholic college, of course he is going to tweet, text, and post on Facebook -- and all of that from his smart phone.

Interestingly, none of these technologies were part of the first draft of No Police Like Holmes -- for the very good reason that the mystery was written about 22 years ago! Rewriting the novel for the 21st century involved lots of interesting changes. Gone was smoking in public buildings. Gone was the need to find a phone to make a call -- now it's in Jeff's pocket. (These were not the only changes; I also re-envisioned some major characters.)

All of this brings up the interesting question of how Sherlock Holmes, that most unsociable of men, would use social media. We have seen some glimpses of that in BBC's "Sherlock," and I suspect there may be more ahead. What unique use do you think Sherlock Holmes would make of social media?