Recensione di Mara Cioffi
Author: Anthony Horowitz
Editor: Harper
Genre: Mistery/Thriller
Pages: 285
Publication Year: 2014
Plot. Days after Holmes and Moriarty disappear into the waterfall’s churning depths, Frederick Chase, a senior investigator at New York’s infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency, arrives in Switzerland. Chase brings with him a dire warning: Moriarty’s death has left a convenient vacancy in London’s criminal underworld. There is no shortage of candidates to take his place—including one particularly fiendish criminal mastermind. Chase is assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones, a Scotland Yard detective and devoted student of Holmes’s methods of deduction, whom Conan Doyle introduced in The Sign of Four. The two men join forces and fight their way through the sinuous streets of Victorian London—from the elegant squares of Mayfair to the shadowy wharfs and alleyways of the Docks—in pursuit of this sinister figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, who is determined to stake his claim as Moriarty’s successor.
Review
Sherlock Holmes is dead! What a superb way to sell a book because this intrigues me even more, and obviously, in a blink of an eye, I had to put it in the cart to read as soon as I can.
From that moment, several years have passed, but finally, I was able to dive into this marvelous reading.
The premise is that Sherlock and his nemesis, James Moriarty, are both dead: they have fallen from the Reichenbach Falls, but Sherlock’s body is nowhere to be found; Moriarty’s, instead, is found with a coded note that casts suspicion on a rival crime lord, Clarence Devereux.
Protagonists of this novel are two detectives: Athelney Jones, a Sherlock Holmes imitation, in fact, he speaks like him, and he passed several years of his life trying to master the art of deduction, and Frederick Chase, an American agent tracking a former suspect which leads him into the heart of British crime.
What does a novel like this should have to entertain? First, it needs to keep the reader guessing; it needs to keep them suspecting everyone, scrutinizing their characters, and letting them re-read some chapters to understand the situation better.
Well, this book achieved it masterfully. Each new character could be a suspect and introduce a unique link to the crime lord. The plot was fast, and some of the chapters ended on a cliff-hanger, making you want to read more and more. Towards the end, the situation becomes even more intense.
Let’s discuss the ending (no spoiler, don’t worry).
The book’s clues are very subtle, so it’s almost impossible to guess the ending from the beginning. Of course, you have suspicious, but they’ll be unfounded. Towards the end, I knew something was about to happen, and I was right because once revealed, it changed the book from a familiar mystery/thriller story to something brilliant and well organized.
The author has been terrific in plotting the entire story without giving too much information, so you need to focus on every little detail to understand everything.
I’m sure many fans of Sherlock Holmes would appreciate this book. Even if you’re not a fan of the British detective, you can enjoy a good mystery full of surprises, clues, misunderstanding, and an evil man who seeks revenge.
Final rate: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz is one of the most prolific and successful writers working in the UK – and is unique for working across so many media. Anthony is a born polymath; juggling writing books, TV series, films, plays and journalism. Anthony has written over 40 books including the bestselling teen spy series Alex Rider, which he adapted into a movie that was released worldwide in 2006. The Alex Rider series is estimated to have sold 19 million copies worldwide. His highly anticipated novel, Oblivion, the epic conclusion to the Power of Five series, was published in October 2012. Anthony is also an acclaimed writer for adults and was commissioned by the Conan Doyle Estate and Orion Books to write two new Sherlock Holmes novels. The House of Silk was published in November 2011 and was internationally lauded as the top title of the autumn. The sequel, Moriarty, was published in October 2014 with similar success. Most recently he was commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write the James Bond novel Trigger Mortis, which was published on 8th September 2015. Anthony is responsible for creating and writing some of the UK’s most beloved and successful television series, producing the first seven episodes (and the title) of Midsomer Murders. He is the writer and creator of award-winning drama series Foyle’s War, which was the Winner of the Lew Grade Audience award for BAFTA. DCS Foyle was voted the nation’s favourite detective in 2011. Anthony has also written other original complex dramas for ITV, particularly thrillers. Collision, a major five part “state of the nation” piece was transmitted on ITV1 in November 2009 to seven million viewers a night. He followed this with the equally successful legal thriller Injustice, also for ITV 1 – transmitted in June 2011. Foyle’s War returned in March 2013 as a Cold War thriller and was greeted with such critical acclaim and demands for more that he wrote one final series, bringing the show to an end in January 2015. Anthony’s latest show New Blood will premiere on BBC iPlayer later this year. Anthony is on the board of the Old Vic Theatre. He regularly contributes to a wide variety of national newspapers and magazines on subjects ranging from politics to education and currently has a travel column in The Telegraph. He has been a patron to East Anglia Children’s Hospices and the anti-bullying charity, Kidscape, since 2008. Anthony was awarded an OBE for his services to literature in January 2014.
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