Background Information and Notes
- One of the book's recurring themes is how Doyle is constantly hounded by Holmes fans, demanding to know how he could have killed off Holmes, and whether he will bring him back in a future book. This is Frost's jab at his being hounded by Twin Peaks fans during his book tour for "The List of Seven".
- The character Major Rolando Pepperman is derived from Conan Doyle's American tour manager, Major J.B. Pond.
- The book's ending leaves ambiguous whether Doyle and Eileen resume their affair, begun in The List of Seven. At this time, Doyle's wife, Louisa, was suffering the debilitating effects of tuberculosis, which prevented them from being physically close. In real life, after Louisa's death, Doyle re-married to a woman, Jean Leckie, with whom he had fallen in love while Louisa was still alive, though he kept their relationship platonic out of loyalty to Louisa.
- The premise of the purported Apocalyptic ceremony is explained largely through Jacob Stern's explanation to Eileen about the beliefs in Kabbalah, including that written words carry a divine power of their own, and that belief in the Messiah is not centered on a person as much as on certain qualities and powers that set one or more persons apart from others.
Read more about this topic: The Six Messiahs
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