Anthony Horowitz isn't necessarily one of my favorite authors, but this premise was too good to pass up. Apparently with the blessing of the Estate of Arthur Conan Doyle, Horowitz was engaged to write new "official" novels in the Sherlock Holmes franchise. The first book in this series, House of Silk (2011), was a typical Sherlock Holmes case, but this book basically picks up where Doyle himself left off, with the standoff between Holmes and Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls when they both supposedly fell to their deaths.

In this book, a Pinkerton detective named Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York, chasing a brutal American criminal mastermind named Clarence Devereaux, who has come to London to lay claim to Moriarty's criminal empire. He teams up with Scotland Yard Inspector Athelney Jones, a self-taught protege of Holmes', and the two chase Devereaux all over London.

Overall, it was an okay story. Like some of Horowitz's other works, I sometimes get the feeling that the author thinks he's cleverer than he actually is, and is more enamored with his own storytelling than the reader actually is. But it was okay. I wish Devereaux were a better villain... he's basically just a vicious criminal that all the civilized Brits stand around scolding for his methods. He dared to kidnap someone's daughter and use her for leverage! Tsk tsk. He said he'd give his word and then went back on it. The scoundrel! And then, at the end, Devereaux ended up being a pretty weak, sniveling antagonist when actually confronted. There was a real "Americans are just dumb, uncivilized cretins" vibe to the whole character.

That said, I can't really say much more about it without spoiling the big reveal at the end so...

Spoiler Warning ▼

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Created Jan 18, 2025 at 12:59pm • Submit your own review...