Elementary, My Dear Cleveland

(L to R): Laurie R. King, Daniel Stashower, Michael Robertson, Leslie Klinger, Dan Andriacco, Sara Paretsky

Now that Bouchercon 2012 is history, I'm even more grateful to have been part of the panel on "Elementary, My Dear Cleveland." We spoke to a standing-room-only crowd that was one of the biggest at the convention.

I joined an all-star cast from the world of Sherlockian scholarship and mystery fiction to discuss such pressing questions as why Sherlock Holmes is so popular today and what we thought of the new TV shows and movies about the Great Detectiv.

If I had taken notes, I could give you some really good quotes, but I was too busy. I just remember Laurie R. King saying that Sherlock Holmes is "hot." Who could argue?

Sara Paretsky, who pioneered the subgenre of tough gal private eye stories with her V.I. Warshawski novels starting in the early 1980s, sat to my left wearing a black fedora. She said it was her deerstalker. She's recently written a Sherlock Holmes story in which Holmes is beaten by a woman. As you know, it wouldn't be the first time.