Narrelle M Harris on Jayantika Ganguly

The Only One in the World: “The Adventure of the Fated Homecoming” by Jayantika Ganguly

Although I haven’t met Jay in person, I’ve known of her work via other Holmesian anthologies and we’ve shared Table of Contents space in Sherlock Holmes: Adventures Beyond the Canon. Jay also edits Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge for the Sherlock Holmes Society of India (for which she is General Secretary too) so she was a natural choice to approach for her take on a Holmes and Watson with an Indian influence.

I loved her contemporary take on the characters’ famous first meeting at St Barts, with Sherlock Dasgupta conducting experiments and his subsequent deductions about Dr “Johnny” Wagh. I especially loved that Sherlock had been named after the original, historical Sherlock Holmes, who was a real person in this universe. Like so many of the authors, Jay has woven in delightful canon references while still making the story her own.

Sherlock Dasgupta’s brother is not Mycroft in this story, but named after a different famous individual, as she explains in her interview at Clan Destine Press. That whole interview is great fun for the background she gives on how she brought the characters into her home country.

If you’re intrigued, take a look at Jay’s interview about her story on Clan Destine Press, where she answers three questions about writing her story – the most unexpected thing she learned while writing it, her favourite thing about writing it, and what is quintessentially Indian about her Holmes and Watson.

You can order The Only One in the World at Clan Destine Press.

More about Jay:

Along with her roles as General Secretary of the Sherlock Holmes Society of India and Editor of their magazine, Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge, Jay is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and several other international Sherlockian societies. She has written for various international anthologies, and published The Holmes Sutra (MX Publishing) in 2014. A Continuum of Sherlock Holmes, due out in 2021, is her first Sherlock Holmes novel. In real life, she is a corporate lawyer.