That’s the kind of headline that doesn’t require a jokey follow-up. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—basketball legend, master of the skyhook, kung-fu brawler—has written a novel about Sherlock Holmes’ older brother Mycroft. We won’t get hyperbolic and say this is the coolest news ever, but it has to be, right? Even if the book doesn’t turn out to be any good, we got to write that headline, and you got to read that headline. We consider that a success.


Anyway, this comes from The New York Times’ Arts Beat, which says the novel—simply titled Mycroft Holmes—is being published by Titan Books and will be in stores this fall. Abdul-Jabbar co-wrote it with On The Shoulders Of Giants writer Anna Waterhouse, and the plot reportedly revolves around Mycroft visiting Trinidad as a recent university graduate. He’s tasked with solving a series of “mysterious disappearances” that involve “dead children and strange, backward facing footprints in the sand.” Also, Mycroft’s bratty little brother, Sherlock, will pop in for a cameo or two.

Abdul-Jabbar says he’s been a Sherlock Holmes fan for over 40 years, and he became interested in Mycroft after reading Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright’s Enter The Lion: A Posthumous Memoir Of Mycroft Holmes. He has also written an autobiography, some nonfiction books, and a number of children’s books, so he’s not only interested in British people who solve mysteries. That’s definitely the thing he’s going to be most famous for now, though.


[via io9]