I’ve introduced Kelly Klages before. She’s truly extraordinary: an artist of diverse media, jeweler, hymnist, writer, etc. She’s particularly taken with Agatha Christie and the one and only Hercule Poirot. As in, she’s so good at what she does that David Suchet pays both attention and his fond regards! Anyway, she takes cool to a new degree with a new announcement. The title? The London Syndicate.
As a labor of love, she’s written a full-length novel starring Poirot! If anyone can do justice to the author, character, and material, it’s Kelly!
Complications exist, however. The characters are not public domain, so she can’t really publish or sell her work. Hence the need for it to qualify as fan fic.
What that means for us, however, is that the entire book is available online for anyone to read! To me, this is a step above a free book: this is fan fic of the highest class. (Her afterword, by the way, delves into how the writing is to be in Christie’s style with inspiration from within her corpus. Good stuff. Even her afterword is quality!)
To further fuel your speculation, the book answers this question: Why didn’t ambitious local criminals take Poirot into account? Why didn’t anyone make more of an effort to get him out of the way? After all, he is the one person who has an impeccable success rate against criminals absolutely everywhere.
Seriously, Kelly, is there anything you can’t do? I guess we’ll find out! Rock on!
I look forward to reading The London Syndicate. This will be a great, fun read in line with the distinguished literary trail of a beloved figure and author.
Again, see how authors aren’t in competition with each other? How it isn’t all about money or the fame of publishing? Awesome.
If you’re looking for a writing exercise, what a cool thing to do as a tribute and mental/writing awesomeness! (At least look at her afterword.)
