NBA icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, along with author Anna Waterhouse wrote a fiction novel titled “Mycroft Holmes”. The two authors held a book-signing event at the Barnes and Noble in the Grove Farmers Market on Sunday.
The title character, Mycroft Holmes, is the brother of the famous fictional character Sherlock Holmes, according to Abdul-Jabbar.
“If you ever read the original group of stories, the shorter stories, and the novels, Mycroft is mentioned a number of times, six or seven times, but never into any depth,” said Abdul-Jabbar. “We don’t really know what he does on the daily basis or how he does what he does.”
The novel follows Mycroft Holmes and his best friend Cyrus Douglas as they travel to Trinidad upon hearing about rumors of homicide and disappearances, according to the Barnes and Noble website.
“There’s a lot of adventure in this, there’s poisonings, there’s beatings, there’s travel. They get shanghai-ed every ten seconds,” said co-author Waterhouse.
Abdul-Jabbar wanted the characters to explore Trinidad because he has a personal connection to the country.
“I know about the island and it’s cultures seeing how that’s where my family comes from,” said Abdul-Jabbar. “My grandfather was an immigrant in 1917.”
The novel takes place during the Victorian age but offers a different perspective. Britain’s connection to the rest of the world through their colonies is an overlooked topic, according to Abdul-Jabbar.
“When most people talk about the Victorian Age, they talk about London and they do it in a way where London is separated from the rest of the world when you don’t realize that it’s attached to all these colonies and these people from all of the British colonies interacted with them,” said Abdul-Jabbar.
Both Waterhouse and Abdul-Jabbar did research to create the novel. One attendee noticed the strength of the Victorian writing style in the novel.
“We had to do our homework,” Abdul responded to the attendee. “We were very thankful for Mr. [Charles] Dickens…and other authors and there also was Kipling [and] people like that who gave us a feel for it.”
Mycroft Holmes is Abdul-Jabbar’s first adult fiction novel, according to Barnes and Noble.
Abdul-Jabbar is best known as the leading scorer for the NBA and played for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. Abdul-Jabbar was a prominent player during the Lakers “Showtime” era in the late 1980’s. During 20 seasons in the NBA, Abdul-Jabbar won six NBA championships and earned NBA MVP six times, according to the NBA.
