Skip to main content

Review - The House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz

I was more than a little sceptical of the idea of someone other than Conan Doyle writing a Sherlock Holmes novel, especially one that would prove to be more than a pastiche, but Anthony Horowitz has managed to tread a remarkably fine line and produce an engaging Holmes novel that is very much true to the spirit of Conan Doyle, but has its own distinct nature.

While Horowitz makes use of all the dark settings of Victorian London, and language that we expect from the narrator, Dr Watson, he extends the characters of Holmes and Watson to add in significantly more humanity - these are less two-dimensional characters than those that Conan Doyle portrayed. (Don't get me wrong: I love the originals, but these versions have a little more to them.) Even the Baker Street Irregulars become people here, rather than devices to move the plot along.

Another advantage Horowitz has is being able to bring in a crime that it is unlikely Conan Doyle could ever have written about - which he does with striking effect.

The book wasn't perfect. We could have had a few more twists and turns - perhaps too many pages were given over to introspection - and I would have liked a bit more contribution from Holmes and particularly Mycroft, who seems bereft of his usual Olympian powers. But it remains a very enjoyable sidebar to the Holmes stories and I look forward to reading the second entry in the series.

Available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Labels:

Comments

  1. Amrita S5 September 2020 at 17:47

    Wow, interesting! I've never heard of this book. Added to reading list.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...
118 comments
Read more

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...
25 comments
Read more

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...
6 comments
Read more