James "Jamie" Watson

Narrator Jamie Watson is the great-great-grandson of John Watson, Sherlock Holmes's best friend and faithful chronicler. In this novel's world, Holmes and Watson were not fictional characters but actual people. Over a century later, he is a lonely sixteen-year-old boy at boarding school in Connecticut. His loneliness is palpable, oft-mentioned by the author. His solitude drives him into a friendship with his would-be counterpart, Charlotte Holmes.

Jamie is motivated by belonging to a family, by finding himself, and by allowing himself to be pulled into something bigger than himself. His friendship with Charlotte is characterized by all of these things, and he devotes himself to her despite her difficult manner.

Like his great-great-grandfather before him, Jamie longs to write so that he can construct a world separate from the one he inhabits. He would prefer a world where his father did not leave him and his...