Daniel, Eugene Friedman talk about Sherlock Holmes and 'Doyle's World'

The game is still afoot. In the case of Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes stories still intrigue, puzzle and surprise readers, new clues await revelation.

You’ll find them in “Doyle’s World — Lost and Found: The Unknown Histories of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” (Square One, $29.95), a new study by father-son authors Eugene (dad) and Daniel (son) Friedman. Eugene of Dix Hills and Daniel of Miller Place, who are pediatricians in Floral Park, will be at The Next Chapter in Huntington on Nov. 16 to talk about the book, which follows an earlier volume they wrote (“The Strange Case of Dr. Doyle") and emphasizes hitherto unknown aspects of Doyle’s early years and their connections to his stories. Also included in the volume are two charming Holmes stories that had been published under pseudonyms.

The Friedmans talked recently to Newsday about their work as literary detectives.

How far back goes your fascination with Doyle and Holmes?

Daniel: I can remember watching my dad read "Sherlock Holmes" when I was 6 or 7 and growing up in Huntington. I wanted to read "Holmes," but he suggested trying something like the Encyclopedia Brown books or the Hardy Boys. Then he took me to see [the movie] “The Adventures of Young Sherlock Holmes.” That did it. I started reading Holmes.

Eugene: I’m 80 and I grew up in the Bronx. I went to Tilly’s Candy Store to buy Classic Comics. I bought one about Sherlock Holmes. It was so beautifully written and illustrated and at the end there was a bio of Conan Doyle. Then in 1954 I watched the TV series “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.” I remember how moody they were — the shadows and the cloudy skies. After that I saw the Holmes films with Basil Rathbone. All that kindled my interest in Doyle.

How did your interest in Watson and Holmes lead to writing a book about them and how did the work become a father-son project?

Daniel: I was in med school [at St. George’s School of Medicine] and I was always coming across articles by Doyle [Doyle studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and then became a practicing physician in England]. They detailed his lifelong crusades. But I noticed there were no biographies of his younger life. I thought Dad would be interested in unearthing whatever we could about that.

Eugene: I could see from Dan’s face how really interested he was in Doyle. I said, "Do you want to write a book?" We set to work.

Doyle practiced medicine, the two of you practice medicine and, as you’re aware, the shelves are lined with mysteries solved by medical practitioners. What links medicine and detection?

Daniel: Like detectives, medical practitioners must have keen powers of observation and a laserlike sense of detail. They must assemble unrelated clues to diagnose a case. Pediatricians, in particular, must solve the cases of patients who can’t necessarily articulate their symptoms.

Eugene: Holmes, like a physician, is a diagnostician. He has to collect information, analyze symptoms and from them form an organic theory.

In writing the book, did you do any detecting of your own?

Eugene: We became curious about a “Mr. Chrea” that Doyle mentioned in a letter written to his mother while he was a young student at Stonyhurst College. Daniel contacted the college where an extensive search of their records revealed no one named Chrea ever existed there as a student or as a teacher. The name and an event Watson mentioned in the letter pointed to a matter about his mother that troubled him at the time. The name also turned up as an anagram in the Holmes story “A Study in Scarlet.”

How did you find time to write while serving full time as medical practitioners? And what were your working methods as a team?

Daniel: The process starts with me, but it becomes seamless. I do outlines and drafts. Dad takes these and expands them.

Eugene: We worked on drafts during 90-minute lunch hours and perfected them on weekends. I polish the style.

Much has been written about Doyle. What does your book bring to the table?

Eugene: We wrote about aspects of Doyle’s life that nobody else has written about. He had an affection for Edinburgh [his birthplace]. He admired Robert Louis Stevenson — he borrowed elements of Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” for his Holmes stories. He wrote a column on photography.

Daniel: I think of the statue in Edinburgh on Picardy Place, where Doyle was born. They honored Doyle by erecting a statue of Holmes. They should have had a statue of Doyle. He could have been depicted as the pugilist that he was, as a physician caring for an ill patient, as a psychic, as a seafarer wielding a harpoon.

Eugene: Even the sharks couldn’t get this guy.