It was a bright warm June in Long Beach, in 2001, the year of our Lord Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in the moments before I was to lay my hot hands on this prodigy. At seven p.m., the California sky loomed clear, sapphire, cloudless; down below, the city’s shining boulevards teemed with slim-limbed soccer players and beach sylphs. Despite the example set by this rabble of healthy humanity, however, I had ensconced myself in my scrumptiously tome-spangled adventure-and-fantasy bookshop, the Red Lion. I, Lola Sanchez, am small, tawny, librarianish, and blessed with extravagant Maya bones. Ox-eyed, tiny-busted, with nice, sturdy legs, I will also allow that I looked particularly fetching on this night, as I had dressed in a hand-sewn violet gown designed after the description of priestess robes in The Mists of Avalon. After checking my cell phone for “texts,” I dusted a little, admiring the sparks shed by my wee diamond engagement ring. I then plumped the plush red-wine-colored leather chairs that waited for the fundaments of Sherlock Holmes fans and the devotees of Bram Stoker.
