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gervase_fenAnthony Horowitz's surprisingly violent post-Reichenbach pastiche is incident packed, as Athelney Jones and his Pinkerton agent ally Frederick Chase pursue Clarence Devereux, the criminal mastermind trying to muscle in on the underworld in place of the now missing Moriarty. The continuity with Conan Doyle and the depiction of a brutal and seedy Late Victorian London is as well handled as it was in "The House of Silk", but overall I found this less satisfying. There's a deliberate slipperiness to the narrative which is as much a homage to classic Agatha Christie as it is to Conan Doyle ; there are also enough dangling threads at the end which make me wonder if this is setting up a third Horowitz Holmes book. If there is another one on the way, I suspect I will enjoy it a bit more.
Orion have submitted this for next year’s Steel, Gold and Historical Daggers, so on the bright side that’s potentially one less book for me to tackle in 2015.
Orion have submitted this for next year’s Steel, Gold and Historical Daggers, so on the bright side that’s potentially one less book for me to tackle in 2015.
