It may not be a complete mystery how John Fitzpatrick came to pen a book of Sherlock Holmes stories, but it does take some figuring out.

And as Holmes himself once said, "There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps."

"Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles," is set during the state's early mining days and features the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes and his steadfast assistant, Dr. Watson.

You may not know that Holmes spent some time in Montana, but his exploits are well documented in Fitzpatrick's new book, recently released by Helena's Riverbend Publishing.

Although he doesn't look the part of a mystery writer, it's quickly apparent that Fitzpatrick is not all that he seems.

By day, Fitzpatrick is a lobbyist for NorthWestern Energy, but he spends his spare time putting his analytical skills to creative use with a variety of fiction projects.

Fitzpatrick became acquainted with the world of Sherlock Holmes when he came down with a serious lung infection as a graduate student.

"I didn't drop out of school, though I probably should have," says Fitzpatrick, who was out of commission for some time.

In a pile of books his wife brought home from the library to help him pass the time, Fitzpatrick found a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the timeless Holmes series. He read that one and more or less finished the other 55 during his time in bed.

Fitzpatrick says he was intrigued by these two English bachelors who ran around solving mysteries. He also appreciated Doyle's attention to the construction of a good mystery.

"These are stories of detection, of problem solving," says Fitzpatrick, who isn't much interested in stories about psychotics or anything with too much blood and gore.

Fast forward to just a few years ago. Fitzpatrick's oldest son went away to college and, he says, "Instantly, I had three hours a day that I never knew I had."

"There's only so much lawn work you can do," he adds.

Fitzpatrick decided to take up writing fiction. He started with a screenplay and then moved on to radio dramas because he found he was pretty good with dialogue.

One of his radio pieces was awarded third place in a contest sponsored by Jim French Productions and is being produced for broadcast on the nationally syndicated radio program Imagination Theater later this summer.

Fitzpatrick decided to try his hand at a Holmes mystery after the inspiration to write a play for the Phillipsburg Opera House went awry.

Over the years, Fitzpatrick discovered that many writers had penned their own derivative works inspired by the Holmes series, so he thought he'd give it a try himself.

Fitzpatrick took his idea for a play and turned it into "The Opera House Murder" instead.

"The smart thing for me is to write what I know," says Fitzpatrick, who, with the Holmes stories, found the perfect venue to do just that -- Fitzpatrick knows Montana history, he knows mining and he knows Holmes.

The three intertwine effortlessly in "Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles," which begins with a clever introduction designed to draw the reader into a curious mystery before the stories even begin.

In writing the book, Fitzpatrick says his most difficult task was to turn his mind back to 1890, when even baseball references would have been too modern for a Londoner to make and certain words were much more uncommon than they are today.

"You have to think your way through very carefully," he says.

For Fitzpatrick, though, crafting stories set in the 1800s beats having to get his mind around modern sleuthing technology ala "CSI."

He does enjoy reading that type of mystery, but notes that in his own contemporary novels, when things get sent off to the crime lab and return, "there is no discussion of what went on in the crime lab."

Fitzpatrick says he has some ideas swirling around for a few more Holmes stories, including one set in Helena.

Figuring out why the famous detective visits the Queen City may not be elementary, but as Holmes often said, "when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."