One of the more interesting purely-fictional trends of the last few years has been the commissioning of modern authors to "continue" the work of deceased ones. Sophie Hannah, for example, has continued the adventures of Agatha Christie's iconic Hercule Poirot. The incredibly prolific Anthony Horowitz, for his part, has been responsible for continuing both Ian Fleming's James Bond series as well as furthering the investigations of that ur-detective, Sherlock Holmes. This project began with 2011's The House of Silk (which I intend to revisit for a later review), and has continued at least as far as 2014's Moriarty.
The first thing to say about Moriarty is that it's not really a "Sherlock Holmes novel". It's written in what Horowitz (a TV scriptwriter with experience in everything from Foyle's War to Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie's Poirot) probably wouldn't mind if I described as the "Homes-verse". It's a world in which Sherlock Holmes most definitely exists, but the great man only makes his presence known in his absence - appearing at the end in a standalone cameo investigating a typically strange case alongside Watson.
We are, in fact, at the beginning of the "Great Hiatus". Holmes has been thrown to his apparent death at the Reichenbach Falls (referred to by another character as the "Reeking-Back Falls"), in the process ending the life of Professor Moriarty and - seemingly - the criminal empire "the Napoleon of Crime" had established. In a somewhat unusually self-aware manner, our narrator begins by explaining that while these events happened then, he writes in full awareness of Holmes' return and the apparent manner thereof. He refers to Holmes' explanation as being "full of inconsistencies", which is perhaps a diplomatic way of pointing to Conan Doyle's considerable willingness to play fast and loose with plausibility on the matter.
Nonetheless, Holmes and Moriarty are both dead, and our story opens in the small Swiss village of Meiringen, where our narrator Frederick Chase - an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency of the USA - meets Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard to investigate the body of the deceased professor.
Jones is an interesting character for Horowitz to have picked up on. While most "updated Holmeses" look pityingly on Inspector Lestrade, Jones is the policeman investigating The Sign of Four and therefore is taken to have a longstanding connection of his own to Holmes. Horowitz in fact goes further, endowing Jones with something of Holmes' deductive reasoning - seemingly cribbed from the great man himself. While Chase is no Watson, being clearly in possession of a strong analytical brain himself, the dynamic becomes something of a Holmes-and-Watson one as the novel continues.
Chase's interest in Moriarty is revealed to stem from his side of the Atlantic. Pinkertons has become aware of the operations of one Clarence Devereux, who appears to be Moriarty's American equivalent, and who was apparently planning to combine his forced with those of his English counterpart. A mysterious coded note (Jones' explanation of how the code can be broken is the equal of any of Holmes' code-breaking efforts and very nearly worth the price of admission itself) gives both men the chance to break Devereux' gang into the bargain, an opportunity neither is willing to pass up.
And so begins an investigation throughout London. While Chase and Jones are hot on Devereux' trail, it seems that a shadowy figure is also interested in his American lieutenants, which serves to complicate matters and make them increasingly dangerous for both men.
It's hard to go into much more detail of the plot without revealing a couple of very impressive twists. While Horowitz telegraphs one of these slightly more than he probably should have done, the more impressive one towards the end of the novel surprised me enough to be "legitimate". The final chapters, explaining how everything had happened, demonstrate that Horowitz played fair with his readers, although the length of the explanation perhaps sounds a bit like an author protesting too much - some of the clues he provides weren't exactly fair ones.
So, does Moriarty work? It does. The focus on the views and attitudes of Scotland Yard towards Holmes and his methods is very clever (there's a very effective scene where Chase is brought into a meeting of the Yard's top brass, many of whom are critical of Holmes' methods and Watson's portrayals of them). While the television series Sherlock showed similar things in its earlier episodes, this is a more sustained examination of how a figure like Holmes could legitimately impact Scotland Yard - some of the police are much less receptive than Jones of Homesian techniques.
There's a good deal of action - much more than typically is the case even in Conan Doyle's novels, let alone the short stories. Some of the violence may be a bit off-putting, particularly as it's recapitulated at the end as all the loose ends are tied up, but we have to remember that this is a contemporary take on Holmes and his era - and violence did after all occur, even if Holmes and Watson tended to take minimal part in it. I won't quite call Moriarty a "page-turner", but the reader will want to know what happens next.
There are, however, a couple of minor niggles. Horowitz doesn't quite get Chase's "voice" right. There are anachronisms (not many) and things-not-quite-American in his dialogue. Jones and the other English characters are likewise guilty of the odd anachronism as well. I'm also slightly sceptical of the logic of writing a continuation of Holmes without (really) including Holmes in it. The standalone short-story at the end of the novel demonstrates that Horowitz is perfectly capable of capturing the Holmesian "tone" much better than he does here.
Overall, three stars. Good, but not truly great
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