MORIARY is a very different book than THE HOUSE OF SILK. Whereas THE HOUSE OF SILK focuses on Sherlock Holmes and his side-kick Dr. Watson, MORIARTY focuses on—well, on Moriarty. Except that he isn’t there, at least not until the very end.
Obviously, with the title of Sherlock Holmes’ famous nemesis, Moriarty must be around somewhere, but readers will enjoy trying to guess who, if anyone in the large cast of characters, he is.
As many have noticed, Anthony Horowitz is a brilliant writer. My husband loves his FOYLE’S WAR series for their moral dilemmas. I loved reading the MAGPIE MURDERS series, especially the first one where we find out about half-way through the novel that we have actually been immersed in a manuscript. I loved that out-of-body sensation as Horowitz deftly executed his plot twist.
And now, in MORIARTY we see Mr. Horowitz’s formidable writer’s craft in full play as he occupies the reader with the first-person point-of-view of Frederick Chase, Senior Investigator for Pinkerton’s of New York. Everything about this novel is filtered through the mind of Mr. Chase – his long journey from New York to find out what happened to Jonathan Pilgrim, his chance meeting at the Reichenbach Falls with Athelney Jones, a Scotland Yard detective, and what happens thereafter.
The two gentlemen strike up a friendship and travel back to England together to get rid of evil criminal genius Devereux before he can wreak more havoc on the streets of London. Unfortunately, Mr. Devereux is an American citizen, currently residing at the American Legation, so Chase and Jones are going to have to come up with a clever scheme of winkling him out so that he can be held accountable for his actions.
The novel is a little slow-going at the start, but really catches fire when Perry, a very plump young man, appears on the scene. After that, the novel is hard to put down. Four Stars.
