57 pages • 1-hour read
The Sherlock Society
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Background
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
Historical Context: Al Capone and the Duality of Miami
James Ponti grounds The Sherlock Society in the history of gangster Al Capone and his real-life relationship with Miami. As noted in an article about the 2023 demolition of Capone’s estate, Capone purchased a lavish Miami mansion at 93 Palm Avenue in 1928 (“Al Capone’s mansion in Miami Beach has been demolished. Why wasn’t it saved?” Miami Herald, 14 Aug. 2023). Capone visited this home often and threw lavish parties there. After spending time in prison in the 1930s, Capone made the Miami estate his full-time residence, and it was there that he died, in 1947. In The Sherlock Society, the young investigators arrive at Capone’s old estate just as its demolition is being completed. Real-life Miami residents were divided about whether it was right to tear down Capone’s estate. Some saw it as an important part of Miami’s history, while others felt that preserving it would send the wrong message about what Miami values.
In The Sherlock Society, Grandpa suggests that Miami has always had a kind of dual identity: “Do not for one second forget that Miami is a sunny place filled with shady people” (55). This characterization reflects Miami’s actual development. In the late 1800s, Miami was a small town surrounded by mosquito-filled swamps—but a clever marketing campaign dubbing it the “Magic City” persuaded wealthy Northerners to invest in land there and started a real-estate boom that led to rapid development. Sunny Miami was soon seen as a glamorous and fun destination for Northerners to escape to during cold Northern winters. As the city grew during the early 20th century, it openly disregarded the Prohibition laws enforced elsewhere in the United States and became a hub for smuggling alcohol from the Bahamas (Piket, Casey. “A Hundred Years Ago, Miami’s Bootleggers Thrived During Prohibition.” Miami New Times, 2019). Although many Miami residents were upset when Al Capone moved into town, it may have been the city’s somewhat lawless atmosphere as much as its glamor and sunshine that drew Capone to settle there.
Literary Context: The Enduring Legacy of Sherlock Holmes
James Ponti’s novel is deeply rooted in the literary tradition established by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, the quintessential fictional detective. Created in 1887, Doyle’s Holmes revolutionized mystery fiction with his reliance on logic, keen observation, and deductive reasoning. Before Doyle’s novels and short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes, it was common for fictional mysteries to be solved by coincidence and good luck. Sherlock Holmes’s insistence on careful observation and rational analysis set a new standard for detective fiction going forward. His relationship with his assistant, Dr. John Watson, was also influential: The contrast between Holmes’s cold logic and Watson’s warmth and relatable confusion is often mimicked in fictional detective pairings to this day.
The Sherlock Society pays direct homage to this legacy, allowing its young protagonists to model themselves after the famous sleuth. They explicitly name their group “The Sherlock Society” (21) and adapt Holmes’s motto from “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” (“It is my business to know what other people don’t know”) into a motto of their own: “It is our business to know what others do not” (24). Further tribute is paid through their storage unit headquarters, numbered 221 in a clear reference to Holmes’s iconic 221B Baker Street address (77). While embracing this classic framework, the novel updates the tradition for a contemporary audience. The young detectives blend Holmesian deduction with modern tools like drones, photo-editing software, and internet searches to solve their case.
This modernization mirrors other successful adaptations, such as the popular BBC series Sherlock and CBS’s series Elementary, which similarly reimagine the detective in a 21st-century technological landscape. A Study in Charlotte, by Brittany Cavallaro, is a young adult novel that follows the adventures of Holmes’s and Watson’s descendants as they solve a mystery at their Connecticut boarding school. Watson and Holmes, by Brandon Perlow, is a graphic novel that reimagines Doyle’s classic characters by setting them in modern-day Harlem. By embedding their investigation within this wider Holmesian tradition, the characters in The Sherlock Society elevate their summer project from a simple game to a noble pursuit, making the fantasy of becoming a detective feel both aspirational and achievable for young readers.
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