The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The word most commonly used by reviewers - even by Anthony Horowitz himself in his closing notes - of The House of Silk is 'pastiche'. It's usually a pejorative term, and some of this book's critics seem to think that this resuscitation of Holmes and Watson is nothing more than a cheap, pointless copy of the originals.

Fine if that's the way you feel about these things. Personally I really enjoyed Horowitz's very good effort to recreate the Conan Doyle stories I used to love. It has a good plot in the style of A Study In Scarlet or The Valley of Fear (Holmes isn't central to the action from start to finish), good twists, and all the classic characters make some sort of appearance - Lestrade, Wiggins, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft - at some point in the novel. Incidentally, it's no surprise that Horowitz regards Jeremy Brett as best Holmes ever; you can picture him playing the central role here (the other actors from that series would do the job for theirs, too).

If you think it's heresy to recreate Conan Doyle - it's written as if Watson penned it around 1916 - then don't bother reading The House of Silk. Get a life. I enjoyed it.

View all my reviews