Millett, Larry 1947-

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MILLETT, Larry 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born 1947.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Penguin Putnam, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014.

CAREER:

Journalist and author. St. Paul Pioneer Press, St. Paul, MN, architecture columnist.

AWARDS, HONORS:

International Architecture Book Award, American Institute of Architects, 1993, for Lost Twin Cities.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon, Viking (New York, NY), 1996.

Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders: From the American Chronicles of John H. Watson, M.D., Viking (New York, NY), 1998.

Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery: From the American Chronicles of John H. Watson, M.D., Viking (New York, NY), 1999.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance, Viking (New York, NY), 2001.

The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes: A Mystery Featuring Shadwell Rafferty, Viking (New York, NY), 2002.

NONFICTION

The Curve of the Arch: The Story of Louis Sullivan's Owatonna Bank, Minnesota Historical Society Press (St. Paul, MN), 1985.

Lost Twin Cities, Minnesota Historical Society Press (St. Paul, MN), 1992.

Twin Cities Then and Now, contemporary photographs by Jerry Mathiason, Minnesota Historical Society Press (St. Paul, MN), 1996.

ADAPTATIONS:

Books adapted for audio include Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders (abridged; four cassettes), Penguin Audiobooks, 1998.

SIDELIGHTS:

Larry Millett is a former architecture columnist and the author of several books on that subject, including The Curve of the Arch: The Story of Louis Sullivan's Owatonna Bank, called "an engaging, straightforward history of that small but majestic structure" by Martin Filler in a New York Review of Books article. Sullivan was hired by banker Carl Bennett to design a bank building in Owatonna, Minnesota, and Millett provides a history of its design, construction, and remodeling, and follows the ascent and decline of Sullivan's career.

Millett's award-winning Lost Twin Cities is a history of the change and urban renewal in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota over a century. He includes nearly 400 black-and-white photographs and profiles more than sixty churches, houses, theaters, office buildings, and other structures and includes a social history. A Bloomsbury Review contributor noted that Millett "has chosen not only the grand and distinguished places but also the ordinary, the humble, the poorly designed, and the downright peculiar." Library Journal's H. Ward Jandl remarked that the study "makes us mourn for the richness that has been lost but also makes us appreciate how much has survived."

Millett followed up with Twin Cities Then and Now, which offers seventy-two historic photographs of streets, taken from the 1880s until the late 1950s, along with contemporary photographs for comparison. The volume also contains four detailed maps that identify significant buildings and locations.

Millett began a series of mysteries featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional characters Sherlock Holmes and John Watson with Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon. Doyle, a Scottish physician, penned the Holmes novels and short stories to supplement his income, but he did not hold them in high regard, feeling that he would be remembered for his serious historical novels, science fiction, and spiritualism. But writers like Millett have picked up where Doyle left off, rewriting the characters of Holmes and Watson and plopping them down in all manner of places far removed from Baker Street. Millett sets his stories primarily in Minnesota.

In the opener, Holmes and Watson arrive in Minnesota at the request of real-life railroad magnate James J. Hill, whose Great Northern Railway is being threatened by an arsonist. January online reviewer J. Kingston Pierce wrote, "Chock-full of colorfully wrought frontier characters, including puissant lumberjacks and high-spirited backwoods prostitutes, and incorporating actual events (most prominently the deadly and still-mysterious Hinckley, Minnesota fire of 1894), Red Demon was a careful tribute to Doyle and a welcome elaboration of the Holmes legend." Armchair Detective's Ronald C. Miller felt Millett's first Holmes mystery to be the best since The Hound of the Baskervilles. Miller called Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon "magnificent, with a wonderful and accurate turn-of-the-century setting, a labyrinthine plot, colorful characters, and the most diabolical and fiendish villain in recent memory."

Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders: From the American Chronicles of John H. Watson, M.D. is set in 1896 St. Paul, home of the winter carnival. At the behest of Hill, Holmes and Watson search for clues to the disappearance of Jonathan Upton, son of prosperous merchant George Upton, who vanished as he was about to marry heiress Laura Forbes. They are joined by Shadwell Rafferty, an Irishman whose business card reads "bartending and discreet investigations," and who has been hired by the senior Upton. A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that Rafferty "lights up each scene in which he appears, adding a distinctively American bounce to a solid, complex mystery distinguished by its vibrant portrayal of nineteenth-century St. Paul." The parents of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who lived in St. Paul during the 1890s, make a cameo appearance.

Pierce called this second Holmes novel by Millett "a satisfying yarn that generally moves at a breakneck clip, its plot buttressed by often-witty dialogue and a few scenes (including a nocturnal chase across the frozen Mississippi) that stay with you even after you turn the book's last page. Doyle would surely have hated Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders, for it is destined to draw a whole new crop of fans to the character he came to resent."

Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery: From the American Chronicles of John H. Watson, M.D. begins in Sweden, with King Oskar II asking Holmes to verify the authenticity of a rune stone found on a farm in Minnesota, and which might prove that America was actually discovered by the Scandinavians. Just as they arrive, the farmer is killed, and the stone is stolen. Rafferty appears in this story, now becoming more of a partner than the rival he had been. A Publishers Weekly contributor felt that Millett "is in his comfort zone with Rafferty, a thoroughly engaging character."

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance is set in 1899 in the Twin Cities. On the eve of President McKinley's visit, union activist Michael O'Donnell is found hanging from a tree outside the family home of Mayor Arthur Adams. The sign hanging from the lynched man proclaims that he was murdered by the Citizens Alliance for the Maintenance of Order and the Freedom of Labor. Rafferty and O'Donnell's sister, Addie, become overwhelmed by the corruption, bribery, and continuing violence they face as they delve into O'Donnell's killing, and Rafferty finally calls on Holmes and Watson, who travel from New York to help. Booklist's Connie Fletcher called the mystery "great fun."

The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes: A Mystery Featuring Shadwell Rafferty begins with the disappearance of Elsie Cubitt, a woman Holmes had helped and become strongly attracted to while on another case. The chief suspect is Chicago mobster Abe Slaney, thought to have drowned in a prison escape. Holmes and Watson travel from England to New York City, and when Holmes disappears, himself now a hostage, Watson and Rafferty are left to rescue the pair. Fletcher commented that Millett "recreates the world of Holmes with uncanny precision."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

AB Bookman's Weekly, September 9, 1985, review of The Curve of the Arch: The Story of Louis Sullivan's Owatonna Bank, p. 1643.

Armchair Detective, spring, 1997, Allen J. Hubin, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon, p. 149; winter, 1997, Ronald C. Miller, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon, p. 115.

Bloomsbury Review, December, 1992, review of Lost Twin Cities, p. 11.

Booklist, October 1, 2001, Connie Fletcher, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance, p. 302; October 1, 2002, Connie Fletcher, review of The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes: A Mystery Featuring Shadwell Rafferty, p. 304.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 1996, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon, p. 1103; October 15, 1998, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders: From the American Chronicles of John H. Watson, M.D., p. 1498; August 15, 2001, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance, p. 1170; September 1, 2002, review of The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes, p. 1269.

Library Journal, December, 1992, H. Ward Jandl, review of Lost Twin Cities, p. 134; February 15, 1999, Theresa Connors, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders, p. 202; October 1, 1999, Rex E. Klett, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery: From the American Chronicles of John H. Watson, M.D., p. 137; October 1, 2001, Fred Gervat, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance, p. 146.

New York Review of Books, January 29, 1987, Martin Filler, review of The Curve of the Arch, pp. 30-34.

Publishers Weekly, August 5, 1996, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon, p. 434; October 12, 1998, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders, p. 61; September 27, 1999, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery, p. 75; September 17, 2001, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance, p. 58; October 7, 2002, review of The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes, p. 55.

Washington Post Book World, January 2, 2000, Guy Amirthanayagam, review of Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery, p. 7.