The Only One in the World: “The Path of Truth.” by Jack Fennell
I was introduced to Jack Fennell at the Worldcon in Dublin in 2019 by Atlin Merrick, who had adored A Brilliant Void, a book of Irish science fiction by women which he’d compiled and edited. He hosted the Irish Ghost Stories panel at the convention, but by then I already knew I wanted him to submit something for the anthology.
Jack understood the concept immediately and said at once that he wanted to play with Irish folktales. What he delivered was also a wonderful tale of shipwrecks, island culture, spookiness and insurance fraud!
I encouraged writers to rename Sherlock or John if required for the cultural context and was delighted that Sherlock became “Turlough Humes” (or more precisely, Tarlach Ua Thuama) for this adventure. (I’m not sure I’ll ever see Turlough from Dr Who the same way!)
One of my favourite aspects of The Path of Truth is, as Jack says, that the solution to this complex mystery could only come from the specific cultural context of this particular Sherlock Holmes.
If you’re intrigued, take a look at Jack’s interview about his story on Clan Destine Press, where he answers three questions about writing his story – the most unexpected thing he learned while writing it, his favourite thing about writing it, and what is quintessentially Irish about his Holmes and Watson.
You can order The Only One in the World at Clan Destine Press.
More about Jack:
Jack teaches at the University of Limerick in Ireland. He’s previously written short stories for Hell’s Empire (2019), Chronos (2018), and Silver Apples Magazine; edited short story collections A Brilliant Void (2018) and It Rose Up (2021) and published two books on Irish genre fiction – Irish Science Fiction (2014) and Rough Beasts (2019).