Author: M.J. Downing

M.J. Downing is a native of Louisville, Kentucky. Born in Shively, KY, in the spring of 1954, he was raised in Okolona, another Louisville suburb. He resided in the Highlands, yet another Louisville neighborhood, for twenty years before marrying his wife, Amy, and moving to Valley Station. Retired now, writing full-time, he and Amy share a delightful house near the Highlands. Downing has been a firefighter, a construction worker, a tobacconist, a writing teacher, and many other things. He is an avid reader, walker, and lifter.

See “Avengers: End Game”

I want to spoil nothing about this movie for anyone, and I will write more about it when folks who care to have gone to see it. For now, I will simply quote J.R.R. Tolkien: A fairy tale “does not deny the existence of...sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy... Continue Reading →

April 28, 2019 0

“Stupid Haphazard Important Things I Think About.” #1 “In the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair, and Gollum, the evil one, crept up and slipped away with her.”

Yeah, I know. “Ramble On,” is older than dirt. I heard it first when I was fifteen, which was back in the late Pleistocene Era. It was the day I took the PSAT, had a fever of 103, and went on my first blind date. Ot was one of the worst days I had in... Continue Reading →

April 4, 2019 0

An Origin for “The Woman” in Sherlock Holmes’s Life?

In the second Guy Ritchie Holmes film, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the early scene featuring Holmes dressed as a woman gave us all a laugh, with Holmes in a dress, wig, and makeup. Those scenes came to mind again while I was reading E. J. Wagner’s The Science of Sherlock Holmes. In her... Continue Reading →

March 28, 2019 0

Requiem for a Powerlifter

Last Thursday, 21 February, 2019, my friend Jimmy Robinson died. He was fifty seven. Cancer got him. Over the years, it got my Mom and one of my sisters and many others. I hate cancer, but I think Jimmy showed me that all it can do is kill you. It can’t take away the... Continue Reading →

February 28, 2019 0

Great Read for ‘Sherlock’ Fans!

M.J. Downing. E.J Wagner’s The Science of Sherlock Holmes, is a treat for lovers of Sherlock Holmes stories and the Victorian era. It’s a fascinating and manageable look at the investigative methods active in Doyle’s time. Through her work, we can see Holmes’s character as a touchstone of investigative behavior for most of us, the... Continue Reading →

January 27, 2019 0

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January 24, 2019 0

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January 24, 2019 0

“Research and Process Notes #1 on Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Un-Dead Client.”

Having set my task to write about Holmes and the Jack the Ripper Murders, my research, naturally, led me to a wider scope of similar murders in that time period, which fit under the looser heading of “Whitechapel Murders.” Only five of these are attributed to the illusive “Jack.” My original intent in this was... Continue Reading →

November 30, 2017 0

“Do We Need Another Sherlock Holmes Story?”

Many folks answer this question with a resounding ‘No!’ Doyle left us with 57 short stories and four novels about Holmes and Watson, so why aren’t these enough? Why did I write Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Undead Client? The big answer is that there are never enough stories as long as people... Continue Reading →

November 30, 2017 0