The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel

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It is good to have such a distinguished narrator as Derek Jacobi, a pleasure to hear and who even managed to make Holmes a fraction more likeable. It was a great story with enough twists and turns (as one would expect from Sherlock Holmens) to keep you listening. With The House of Silk, Horowitz makes his first (and hopefully not his last) foray into the world of probably the most iconic detective of them all: Sherlock Holmes. The pleasure of this audio version is greatly enhanced by Derek Jacobi's lively narration and ability to mimic many different accents. Watson has to come to his friend’s rescue, he must be the one to get him out of prison, so that Holmes can find the killer, and solve the mystery of the ailing Carstairs family.

When the boy’s badly-beaten body turns up days later, Holmes and Watson find that things have taken a much more sinister turn, and that the mysterious House of Silk lies behind everything. I can’t really elaborate on the plot in this review because that would completely ruin the story and I don’t want to give away any spoilers so if you like Holmes and Watson and fancy spending a bit of time in their company again then what you waiting for? Observing the window, he realizes Ross would have had a clear view of the alley and may have seen the killer. As he approaches the end, you feel that the words he would most like to hear are, ‘The game’s afoot!Destined to become an instant classic, The House of Silk brings Sherlock Holmes back with all the nuance, pacing, and almost superhuman powers of analysis and deduction that made him the world's greatest detective, in a case depicting events too shocking, too monstrous to ever appear in print. While paying homage to the Athur Conan Doyle style of writing and using all the elements of a good Sherlock Holmes story, Horowitz also gives the reader a glimpse of his own take on this well-known detective. As is also traditional, the story opens with a lesson, by Holmes, in ratiocination and deductive reasoning, as he divines the reason for Watson’s visit based on a handful of seemingly innocuous clues. Unfortunately you do see the authors 21st century sensibilities coming out and there is the too obvious references to sex. It is a fact that Conan Doyle never put such things in his Sherlock Holmes stories; Horowitz points out that several Holmes stories do not even involve murder.

Intrigued by the man's tale, Holmes and Watson find themselves swiftly drawn into a series of puzzling and sinister events, stretching from the gas-lit streets of London to the teeming criminal underworld of Boston. And as they dig, they begin to hear the whispered phrase-the House of Silk-a mysterious entity that connects the highest levels of government to the deepest depths of criminality. A fine art dealer named Edmund Carstairs visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson to beg for their help. The gang had robbed a train carrying four paintings from his firm to a wealthy Bostonian named Cornelius Stillman, destroying them in the process and killing Carstairs' agent. In a certain way I do find this novel a bit more mature than some of Arthur Conan Doyle's own novels.And then there are the many profane writings, films, and TV and radio shows based on, inspired by or otherwise deriving from the originals, ranging from the early Ellery Queen-edited The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes (1944) to the movie The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother (1975), with a star turn by Rumpole-to-be Leo McKern as Moriarty. Dorothy L Sayers understood the rules of the Holmesian game when she remarked that "it must be played as solemnly as a county cricket match at Lord's: the slightest touch of extravagance or burlesque ruins the atmosphere". There is also a certain element of charm missing but I can’t quite put my finger on why – maybe it’s just in that this novel feels a little bit more modern and so misses some of the olde world character of past novels or maybe it’s because it feels a little tentative – almost as though the novel is saying ‘hey, I’m trying to be a new Sherlock Holmes story – will I do? Pitch-perfect characterisation combined with a complex and involving plot leave the reader in no doubt that Holmes – and the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – are alive and well in the form of Anthony Horowitz.

I sometimes wonder how I will be able to find the energy or the will to undertake another investigation if I am not assured that the general public will be able to read every detail of it in due course. The client of "The Flat Cap case" is introduced as a man by the name of Edmund Carstairs, an art dealer whose paintings had been destroyed by a gang of Irish robbers. There were eleven more books in the series - the latest, Never Say Die, was published in 2017 - and they are now being developed for TV. There is no doubt, both in terms of the references both overt and implicit, and the general tone Horowitz strikes, that the author has immersed himself in the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle whilst writing this latest adventure.But The House of Silk is in a class of its own: Horowitz's novel is the first Sherlock Holmes addition to have been written with the endorsement of the Conan Doyle estate. He’s actually less disdainful towards Watson and the police in The House of Silk, where authenticity ends up lost to make him a kinder, gentler Holmes, and nobody asked for that.