House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz

After having read all (and yes, I do mean all) of Conan-Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, I have to say that I was hooked. I simply couldn’t get enough of the adventures of the ‘world’s greatest detective’. So you can probably imagine my excitement and slight trepidation when I found out that Anthony Horowitz, an author whose other books I had previously read and enjoyed, had written what was branded as ‘the new Sherlock Holmes novel’.  That same day I went out and brought the book, admittedly not even bothering to read the blurb which I knew would just feed my anticipation.

And I wasn’t disappointed. As soon as you read the first sentence of the prologue, you’re immediately hit by the astounding way that Horowitz somehow manages to affect the exact same writing style used by Conan-Doyle in the original novels. Everything is perfect; from the sentence structures to the use of words that are possibly archaic to today’s standards, but fit in perfectly with the era of the novel. Reading on, you simply find yourself captivated, glued to the pages as the mystery unfurls around you, taking twists and turns as unlikely or improbable as you could get, but all the while following the inevitable deductions given by Holmes, created as ingeniously as in the original canon. Even more brilliantly, Horowitz makes sure that even while our protagonists seem to be deducing seas from drops of water, we as readers can easily follow the plot, even in places being able to make deductions of our own without too much mental effort, and without taking the air of intelligence away from the story.

Although ‘House of Silk’ is perhaps very different from some of Horowitz’s other novels, namely the adventurous ‘Alex Rider’ series, or even the ‘Diamond brothers’ collection, it still manages to get across the brilliance of his writing despite the story being set in a completely different time period and showing a writing style very different from anything still seen in the modern day.

 Even without any mention of Deerstalkers, or the appearance of the line ‘Elementary my dear Watson’, (probably to the joy of some Holmes aficionados) ‘House of Silk’ is inevitably a classic Sherlock Holmes tale filled with the amazing deductions of the original books, while bringing elements of adventure and excitement that will readily be loved by anyone – whether they have read the originals or not.