Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

In the days following the disappearance of both Sherlock Homes and Professor James Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls, a new criminal mastermind has come on the scene. Clarence Devereux, a crime boss from America has decided to take over Moriarty’s criminal empire, filling the void. On his trail is a senior Pinkerton investigator by the name of Frederick Chase who joins forces with a Scotland Yard detective named Athelney Jones.

Interestingly, Jones appeared in the Holmes story, The Sign of the Four, but felt he came off in a bad light. Consequently, he has devoted the last several years of his professional life to studying the methods and techniques of Sherlock, himself, and so he now is quite good at the deductive reasoning approach.

This was a wonderful detective yarn, filled with great characters, a Sherlockian-style London atmosphere, and an evil menacing plot. It was like reading a Sherlock Holmes story even though Holmes wasn't in it. Our two protagonists, Jones and Chase fill the roles of Holmes and Watson admirably although neither quite meets the mold of their role models. There are also a number of other Sherlockian characters and references from Conan Doyles’ stories that show up including from ‘The Speckled Band’ and ‘The Red-Headed League’.

There is a huge twist at the end and even though I’ve read Horowitz before and even though I suspected not all was as it seemed, I was still caught up in a “Holy Cow” moment when it happened. It is important to note that this is an “fair-play” mystery, meaning it doesn’t cheat the reader out of any clues. All is there to be worked out on your own…it’s just that I had it figured wrong.

Yet another wonderful read from one of my top 5 authors of all genres. I’m glad he is so prolific because I want to keep reading his work for many years to come.