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The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

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annis
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 4585
Joined: August 2008

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

Post by annis » Sat December 10th, 2011, 9:21 pm

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories have continued to delight readers ever since they first appeared in print; indeed their immense popularity led Conan Doyle to fear that he’d created a monster, though his attempt to put a end to Holmes’ mania by killing him off proved a singular failure. These original stories have spawned innumerable pastiches in print and film, some more successful than others.

Having been recently sadly disappointed by PD James’ historical mystery/Austen pastiche, Death Comes to Pemberley (see my thoughts here), I felt a bit of trepidation about Anthony Horowitz’ House of Silk. Happily, Horowitz has managed to both capture Conan Doyle’s voice perfectly and also come up with a grand adventure. Holmesian purists may feel that Watson’s maunderings about the plight of London’s homeless children and Holmes’ remorse about the cruel fate of a street urchin are an unnecessary concession to modern sensibilities and more characteristic of Dickens than Doyle. Other readers may find they add humanity to one of fiction’s most famous pair of detectives. On the whole, though, I think Conan Doyle would approve.

My House of Silk review at Historical Novels Info
http://www.historicalnovels.info/House-of-Silk.html
Last edited by annis on Sun December 11th, 2011, 3:25 am, edited 6 times in total.

SGM
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 700
Joined: March 2010

Post by SGM » Sun December 11th, 2011, 3:50 pm

[quote=""annis""]Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories have continued to delight readers ever since they first appeared in print; indeed their immense popularity led Conan Doyle to fear that he’d created a monster, though his attempt to put a end to Holmes’ mania by killing him off proved a singular failure. These original stories have spawned innumerable pastiches in print and film, some more successful than others.

Having been recently sadly disappointed by PD James’ historical mystery/Austen pastiche, Death Comes to Pemberley (see my thoughts here), I felt a bit of trepidation about Anthony Horowitz’ House of Silk. Happily, Horowitz has managed to both capture Conan Doyle’s voice perfectly and also come up with a grand adventure. Holmesian purists may feel that Watson’s maunderings about the plight of London’s homeless children and Holmes’ remorse about the cruel fate of a street urchin are an unnecessary concession to modern sensibilities and more characteristic of Dickens than Doyle. Other readers may find they add humanity to one of fiction’s most famous pair of detectives. On the whole, though, I think Conan Doyle would approve.

My House of Silk review at Historical Novels Info
http://www.historicalnovels.info/House-of-Silk.html[/quote]

He has done a lot of writing for TV and that tends to prompt a writer to fast-moving action, or in Fielding's case writing for the stage. AH can undoubtedly plot well most of the time. I was a big fan of the early "Foyle's War" episodes but found the plots of the middle ones didn't quite work as well for me.

The Alex Rider novels for teens are not too bad either.
Currently reading - Emergence of a Nation State by Alan Smith

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