After Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger, Conan Doyle’s other best-known recurring character is Brigadier Gerard, a French hussar during the Napoleonic Wars. In this wonderful footnote, Bootmaker Cliff Goldfarb presents his paper, The Brigadier in Switzerland: Travels with Arthur and Napoleon. Happy listening and thanks to Mike (from me, Geordie) for recording and producing these […]

On October 13 , 2018 an intrepid contingent of Bootmakers journeyed to Niagara on the Lake to see the Shaw Festival’s production of The Hound of the Baskervilles. This footnote records a preshow chat with Shaw’s planning director, Jeff Cummings, as well as Damian Atkins, who plays Holmes himself. Big thanks to Mike for recording […]

Hogtown Empire is Geordie’s new true crime podcast. Canadian theatre tycoon Ambrose Small disappeared on December 2, 1919. This new true crime podcast from Geordie Telfer sets the stage for Hogtown Empire, the book, coming in 2019. Premiering on the 99th anniversary of Ambrose Small’s disappearance, Season 1 looks forward to the 100th anniversary next […]

The Adventure of the Gloria Scott takes us back to the case that started it all, a flashback within a flashback (very Inception, Doyle). Holmes recounts the story to Watson; it’s an early case that takes place during Holmes’ varsity days. When he’s not recovering from keggers and swallowing live goldfish (kidding, kidding) Holmes takes […]

One of the most satisfying and heartwarming, yet least eventful stories in the Canon, The Yellow Face holds a sinister sort of macabre promise at the outset, but rewards first-time readers with an unexpectedly touching dénouement. Of course, if Effie Munro had just come clean with her husband from the beginning, a horse-and-cartload of misunderstanding […]

The Cardboard Box is absolutely one of the grimmest stories in the Canon, lacking many of the cozy familiars we have come to suspect. Nonetheless Holmes is in fine form, even though Watson has a bad case of the Summer Time Blues. Conan Doyle was so uncomfortable with The Cardboard Box that he opted not […]

And we’re back! Season 2 starts as it ought to with Silver Blaze. A fan favourite despite problems of logic and accuracy, Silver Blaze was one of Conan Doyle’s faves though not in his top 10 or even his top 12. Holmes is in fine form even though the villain considerately if unnecessarily takes […]

Tracy L. Ward writes the best-selling Marshall Hall mystery series about Victorian morgue surgeon, Peter Ainsley. This is her talk from the April 7, 2018 meeting of The Bootmakers of Toronto. Tracy talks about the joys of remote and on-site research as well as the adventure of her first trip to England after she’d already […]

Here’s a talk that best-selling Canadian mystery writer Ian Hamilton gave at The Bootmakers of Toronto April 7, 2018 meeting. Ian is the author of the Ava Lee mysteries, going into production soon as international co-productions for TV! Here, he gives an entertaining and informative talk about becoming a writer and his experiences over 11 […]