West Coast Ghosts

Foot-brake, wheel-brake, slot-brake and gong,
You’ve got to keep ’em working, or you’ll soon be going wrong!
Rush her on the crossing, catch her on the rise,
Easy round the corners, when the dust is in your eyes!
And the bell will always stop you, if you hit her up a clip
You are apt to earn your wages, on the Hyde Street Grip!

Ballad of the Hyde Street Grip by Gellet Burgess, 1901

My second story to be announced this month takes us across the America to the East Coast for a mystery set on San Francisco’s famous cable cars. However, this time it is not a case for Sherlock Holmes, but my first mystery for his successor, Solar Pons.

With Holmes’s retirement to Sussex to attend to his bees (and the occasional mystery), clients could no longer find the answers to their problems on Baker Street. However, around the corner on Praed Street, another investigator stood ready to take up the deerstalker — Solar Pons. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, this new detective, created by August Derleth to fill the void left by Holmes, solved mysteries with the help of his own faithful companion and chronicler, Dr. Parker.

However, it was not just Londoners who could turn to Solar Pons for help. The latest collection from Belanger Books features some of The American Adventures of Solar Pons. My story The Gripman’s Ghost takes place in 1930s San Francisco, following the end of prohibition, where Pons is asked to investigate an unquiet spirit on the famous Hyde Street cable car. It is an adventure that takes him from sophisticated Nob Hill, down the steep streets of the city, to Fisherman’s Wharf, home to the San Francisco mafia and a chocolate factory!

The American Adventures of Solar Pons is now available to pre-order through Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/belangerbooks/the-american-adventures-of-solar-pons, and you can find out more about Solar Pons - The Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street from the collection’s editor, David Marcum.