Neo-Casting or Decentring the Great Detective

This chapter explores texts in which it is not the Great Detective but other Doylean or neo-Holmesian characters who investigate the Ripper case. And just as there is an apparent multiplicity of Holmeses, or rather a Holmesian palimpsest inscribed with seemingly mutually exclusive versions of and additions to the serial figure (see Chap. 5 ), there are numerous possibilities for recreating the original character constellations. They include sister sleuths—canonical, such as Irene Adler, Mrs Hudson, or Mrs Watson, and new, such as Charlotte (a sister), Evelina (a niece), or Lucy (a daughter)—as well as male characters—particularly James Moriarty or Inspector Lestrade and, to a lesser extent, John Watson—stepping out of the Great Detective’s shadow. Two questions worth asking are, first, whether this new/neo-casting is an indication of the neo-Victorian “voicing” and a reflection of changes within crime and detective fiction or a way of diversifying an all-too-conventional Holmesian storyworld fossilised by the pastiche form; second, to what extent can Doyle’s detective be decentred?