Larry Millett has closed the book on a character that's been with him since the 90s. His latest book, Rafferty's Last Case (2022, University of Minnesota Press,) opens with the death of Shadwell Rafferty - the American contemporary to Millett's borrowed protagonist, Sherlock Holmes.
This is the ninth and final novel with Sherlock Holmes and Rafferty, but it's not officially the end of the original character. Millett has just finished three novella's that highlight Rafferty. "They're set in the late-1880s and early-1890s," says Millett. "I suppose you could say they're prequels."
For those die-hard Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fans, the spirt of Holmes's London is prevalent in Rafferty's St. Paul. "I worked very hard," says Millett, "to feel the spirit of Conan Doyle throughout the books and to be faithful... to the canon."
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