Believe it or not, two more murder mysteries today. Both are pastiches. How do they fare against the originals?
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz C+
If you like mysteries more than me, you will probably give this a grade of B. But me being me, I found it, okay. Just okay.
What makes this interesting is Horowitz's take on Sherlock Holmes. How does he write him different than Doyle? Or does he?
He writes his story with Doc Watson as the narrator, as in the originals. However, Watson is very elderly now, and the story written after the Great War and Holmes' death, so it is a bit more sentimental. But not only is Watson more sentimental, but so is Holmes. A lot more sentimental. Holmes is less remote, more friendly, and shown to be more human and haunted with guilt than Doyle's Holmes. He is also a little more stupid, at least when needed for the plot. For example, he visits an opium den to search for clues, without any sort of disguise, and thus falls into a trap. The real Holmes would never have done that. He would've gone as some sort of half-breed seaman or some such character that one would expect to find in a Dockland opium den, just as Nayland Smith would've done. And Holmes lets Watson tag along as well for back-up, something the real Holmes would not done, nor needed to do.
There are have been several thousand Sherlock Holmes pastiches written. I've maybe read a handful of them, so I can't say with any certainty just how this pastiche compares to the run of the mill Holmes pastiche, but I don't think that it necessarily stands out. As I said at the top, fine for what it is. If you can't get enough Sherlock Holmes, then you won't go wrong with this book. But I don't think it's a must read for fans of the great Holmes.
Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz C
One of the essential ingredient of the original Sherlock Holmes stories is cleverness. And conciseness. Both of those elements, I feel, are lacking in this book.
The premise of this book is that it takes place immediately after the supposed death of Holmes at Reichenbach Falls. Both Moriarty and Holmes are presumed dead. Enter a Pinkerton Agent who is following an utterly ruthless criminal from America, Clarence Devereax, who has taken over the role of crime boss of England from Moriarty, after his organization was put out of business by Holmes. This Pinkerton agent, Chase, partners with Scotland Yard Agent Athelney Jones to track down this ruthless American gangster and his trusted thugs.
This investigation is conducted much like a game of Clue, going to different houses, clubs, and embassies asking if Clarence Devereax is there. Along the way we meet minor characters from the original stories and references to them. Horowitz also tosses in a lot of period color and such, but as I said, going around asking Devereax's henchmen if he is there, (and no, he's not), gets rather tedious. And anything but clever. You also have a lot of people getting their throat cut or shot along the way, something thankfully missing in the original stories.
There is a twist at the end, which I won't spoil, except to say what you think of it will likely affect what you think of the book. I was bored with the story, and I must admit that I was doing some skim reading towards the end, just to finish it, so I didn't care about the twist. I don't think much of this story made sense, if you stop to think about it, but I can't go into why without spoiling it.
Sherlock Holmes does not appear in this story. But if you are one of his fans, you might like this, but I believe is rating is less than the Silk House, so it is likely more divisive.
And with this book, I think I've read enough of Anthony Horowitz's books to say, "enough."
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