Nicholas Meyer Takes on Donald Trump, By Way of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols, by Nicholas Meyer
Star Trek often uses tales set in the future to address issues of today. Now, one of Star Trek’s most celebrated writers is trying the same thing with a tale set in the past.
Nicholas Meyer served as writer and director on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. He also wrote Star Trek: IV: The One with the Whales. Now, he’s returned to another literary love, writing his fourth Sherlock Holmes novel: The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols.
His first turn with the character in over a quarter-century had Meyer wondering how he might address politics today. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Meyer said, "How do you take on Donald Trump, I thought, ‘Well, I tell stories, so maybe I could write a stealth novel about this.’”
The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols sees Holmes and Watson looking into the death of a British Secret Service agent, in a case that takes the pair from Paris to Russia. But it sounds like there’s plenty of subtext in the text. Meyer told The Hollywood Reporter:
“The novel was a synthesis of my interests in forgery, being somewhat of a forger myself, as I came to realize, and my alarm at the proliferation of forgeries and fakes and politicians who now accuse others of what they are themselves doing, and yell 'fake this,' and 'fake that,' and so we’re like a goofy firing squad, everybody shooting guns in a circle. I thought maybe I would try to address it.”
Meyer came close to winning an Academy Award for earlier work with Holmes and Watson. His 1976 screenplay adaptation of The Seven Percent Solution, his first Holmes novel, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Asked whether he’d adapt his latest novel for the screen, Meyer said, “If somebody pays me money, I will, yes.”
Of course, you don’t have to wait for a movie that may or may never be made. The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols is available now in bookstores and online.
