Is the world in need of a yet another Sherlock Holmes story? Well, with the successful publication of Anthony Horowitz’s The House of Silk it seems it is. Riding on the crest of the wave created by BBC’s ingenious series Sherlock, which brings the brilliant detective into the 21st century, and the Robert Downey Jnr blockbuster movies, which portray Holmes as a scruffy Victorian bruiser, Horowitz’s novel, authorised by the Conan Doyle estate no less, attempts to give us an authentic Sherlockian adventure.
Of course, creating copycat Holmes tales is nothing new. There have been literally hundreds of them over the years. Indeed in 1954 Doyle’s own son Adrian, with the help of crime writer John Dickson Carr, brought out a volume of short stories, The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes, which mimicked his father’s style effectively. However, the pastiche bandwagon really began rolling with Nicholas Meyer’s phenomenally successful novel, The Seven Per-cent Solution in 1975. Not only did this stay at the top of the bestseller list on both sides of the Atlantic for many weeks, but it was also turned into a glossy Hollywood movie. This novel started a trend of involving Holmes with real historical figures and over the years he has encountered such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, George Bernard Shaw, Buffalo Bill, a young Winston Churchill and Edward VII amongst others. There were other writers who went a step further and involved the master detective with characters from other works of literature such as Dracula, Dr Jekyll, the Phantom of the Opera, Tarzan and even Hercule Poirot.
Horowitz is having none of this nonsense –— this blasphemy. No doubt the Doyle Estate had strict views on what was permissible. Horowitz’s aim is to bring the reader a tale that could easily be mistaken for a work of Holmes’ creator. This is a difficult task because inevitably the process involves repeating some of the tricks and familiar elements from the source material: in simple terms, copying. There is then a danger of being so similar to the original that there is no drama, no tension and no surprises. It can also lead the writer into the realm of cliché. Certainly this is how I felt about the opening scene of Horowitz’s novel where he has Holmes playing the well worn game of breaking into Watson’s thought processes to explain what he is thinking: the ‘Good heavens Holmes, how on earth did you know that?’ scene. This was a device that Conan Doyle borrowed from Edgar Alan Poe’s detective character, Auguste Dupin.
However, once the plot of The House of Silk kicks in, things improve tremendously. Creating the unexpected and cunning convolutions of the mystery, Horowitz is in his element and produces a rattling, page-turning yarn. His time penning Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War is evident in the various sleights of hand that he performs as he leads Holmes and Watson deeper into this tangled tale.
While there are no major shocks, nothing to upset the Sherlockian world, Horowitz presents some pleasing surprises along the way and the final resolution touches on a subject that Doyle would certainly have avoided. An added joy is the way that Horowitz skilfully blends various threads found in the original stories such as references to previous cases, a sinister American connection and even a guest appearance from a certain master criminal. Horowitz captures Watson’s style perfectly, painting wonderful word pictures for his readers, while Sherlock himself is suitably brilliant and capricious, if lacking a little depth; he is perhaps more shadow than substance.
Creating a new Sherlock Holmes story to match the originals is a nigh on impossible task, especially in a novel — the short stories were so much better — but Mr Horowitz has done an excellent job and I’m sure it will please the many admirers of the deer-stalkered one.
David Stuart Davies is an author and Sherlock Holmes expert.
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