195. Moriarity

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Michael Koss

Author:   Anthony Horowitz

Genre:  Fiction, Crime, Suspense, Mystery

285 pages, published December 9, 2014

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Moriarty is author Anthony Horowitz’s second entry into the Sherlock Holmes genre, following up on The House of Silk.   The books are not related and even have different characters.  Notably, there is no Sherlock Holmes in Moriarity other than as a remote figure.   The stand in for Holmes is Inspector Athelney Jones, a Scotland Yard detective and devoted student of Holmes’s methods, whom Conan Doyle introduced in The Sign of Four.

 

Quotes 

“Give him his due: this is a man who has always faced his fears square on, whether they be a deadly swamp adder, a hideous poison that might drive you to insanity or a hell-hound set loose on the moors. Holmes has done many things that are, frankly, baffling – but he has never run away.”

 

“Robert Pinkerton used to say that a lie was like a dead coyote. The longer you leave it, the more it smells.”

 

“It seemed that there was nothing you could find here that was not expensive and very little that was actually necessary.”

 

My Take

I would have given Moriarty three stars, but the big twist at the end deserved an extra half star.  I enjoyed this take on the Sherlock Holmes genre more than The House of Silk.  However, both pale in comparison to Magpie Murders which is the best mystery by Anthony Horowitz that I have read.  If you are a mystery devotee and a fan of Sherlock Holmes, then you will enjoy Moriarty.