There's no place like Holmes
Subtitle: exploring sense of place through crime fiction
By: Derham Groves
Publisher: Black Jack Press
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Carlton North, Vic
Language: eng
Number of pages: 178
ISBN-13: 9780958078597
Subjects: Architecture and literature; Architecture in literature; Sherlock Holmes (Fictitious character); Miscellanea; Crime writing; Communication in architecture; Architecture
Description: In There's No Place Like Holmes: Exploring Sense of Place in Crime Fiction, author and architect Derham Groves examines the 'architectural' dimension of the work of several crime fiction writers, focusing primarily on British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but also including Australian authors Marshall Browne, Peter Corris, Michael Jorgensen, Mary-Rose MacColl, Barry Maitland, Peter Temple, and Arthur Upfield. Groves discusses how these authors create a dramatic or suspenseful 'atmosphere' through their vivid and detailed descriptions of the scene of the crime in particular, and the built environment in general. In the case of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Conan Doyle, Groves also identifies some of the actual places that inspired the fictitious places. For example, Groves suggests that the captain's cabin on the S.S.

Hope, a whaler on which Conan Doyle served as ship's surgeon in 1880, inspired the building in which Captain Peter Carey was murdered in 'The Adventure of Black Peter' (1904). While other books have examined sense of place in (crime) fiction, such as Literary Architecture: Essays Toward a Tradition - Walter Pater, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Marcel Proust, Henry James (1979) by Ellen Eve Frank, and Dwelling in the Text: Houses in American Fiction (1991) by Marilyn R. Chandler, Groves looks at crime fiction more exclusively from the points of view of artists, architects and designers. Groves discusses at length the art, buildings, exhibitions, interiors, projects, and stage sets that have alluded to or been influenced by crime fiction.

These include works by Block Architecture, Robin Boyd, Derek Walker Associates, Buckminster Fuller, Mark Galea, Sharon Goodwin, Derham Groves, David Harris, Christopher Langton, Lyons, Gordon Matta-Clark, May Design Group, Edward Merrill, Moriyama & Teshima Architects, Nat & Ali, SITE, Sally Smart, and students of architecture from RMIT University and the University of Melbourne. Groves concludes that in the areas of place making and place-recording, architects especially can learn a lot from authors of crime fiction. There's No Place Like Holme will be extensively illustrated with colour photographs and black and white drawings.