victorian221b | A book review: Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz (2014)

Warning: heavy spoilers

Last Holmestice I read

sanguinity’s gripping piece called Tea for Two, with no prior knowledge of this novel. The premise drew me in so much that I added Moriarty to my reading list at once.

Before I begin my rant, I must say that the book is very entertaining. It took me two evenings to read it. What’s more, I found it rather satisfying that the questions asked in the first chapter about inconsistencies of Watson’s Reichenbach reports were covered by my headcanons.

For example: why Holmes thought it was safer to flee London which he knew very well and where he could hide in disguise in one of his bolt-holes. In my headcanon, Holmes was afraid not for his own life but for Watson’s, and since Watson couldn’t be hidden under an assumed identity, Holmes took him to the continent.

I agree wholeheartedly that Watson’s accounts of the Reichenbach events are fictionalised to a great extent. But while the inconsistencies are mocked in the book, I believe Watson had very good reasons for mystifying his readers as he often did.

This book can have an alternate title Moriarty, or Athelney Jones: a Sherlock Holmes wannabe. It was amusing to read about Jones who developed a fixation on Holmes and his methods to the point of imagining himself Holmes’s replacement and taking up residence in Baker Street.

It was also curious that Horowitz suggests that Athelney Jones of SIGN and Peter Jones of REDH are two brothers rather than one and the same man named Peter Athelney Jones. In REDH Jones mentions the circumstances of SIGN and says, “We’re hunting in couples again.” In my opinion, it clearly signifies that he was one of the participants of SIGN rather than heard the story from his brother.

Jones complains that Watson wasn’t “charitable” when portraying him in SIGN. Considering Jones’s disdainful attitude towards Holmes, I can easily imagine why the doctor used an opportunity to cut a bitch. Come to think of it, Watson does it to everyone who behaves disrespectfully towards Holmes while those who show deference like MacDonald or Hopkins are portrayed nicely in the stories.

As for MacDonald, his statement that he never met Holmes is rather baffling. He in fact did meet Holmes in VALL which is set before Reichenbach.

Jones saying that he took less notice of Watson because Watson was standing in the shadows during the investigation at the Pondichery Lodge house is as baffling. How about the fact that later on Jones dined with him and Holmes at Baker Street and subsequently participated in the chase of Jonathan Small? Surely Jones had plenty of opportunities to have a better look at Watson.

Canon details aside, for me the involvement of John Clay from REDH in the exact same capacity of digging a tunnel for robbery was somewhat of a disappointment. I’d rather see an original character in a new role rather than the old one being rehashed.

Another turn off was the too modern language of the book. It sounds very contemporary, and not something from the late 19th century. For some reason, automobile accidents are considered to be commonplace at the time when motorcars just started to appear. Then there’s a scene when the police raid a club and find its owner in the process of being fellated by a youth, and it isn’t regarded as a criminal offence. At that time it would have had very serious consequences, this being buggery, even if the young man was of age.

The explanation of Moriarty’s escape, that he calculated the direction of his fall and thus was able to save himself, seems rather improbable. The detail incriminating the antagonist of the novel—a page he tore out from a library book to write a note—is rather forced too. Why not use a plain piece of paper instead?

I didn’t like that Holmes is demeaned in the novel. While Moriarty is his enemy, in the Canon they clearly had mutual respect for each other.

All in all, as I mentioned at the very beginning, the book was an entertaining read. Still, I prefer fan fic to it :)