Book Review: Moriarty

Name: Moriarty

Author: Antony Horowitz

Published: 2014

Moriarty_Novel

Sherlock Holmes is dead. The famous detective and his nemesis, Moriarty, fell to their deaths at Reichenbach Falls. But all is not as it seems. A brand new criminal mastermind has arrived from America and with him brings change. He wishes to rebuild the underworld empire Moriarty left behind and make it stronger than ever before.

 And so it is down to junior investigator Frederick Chase to forge a path through the darkest corners of the capital. With the help of Inspector Athelney Jones, he races against time and this shadowy figure, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and menace.

The game is afoot…


Moriarty is a Sherlock Holmes novel… with neither Holmes or Watson and by a different author! But, Anthony Horowitz perfectly captures Doyle’s writing style – this book is full of red herrings, exciting pursuits, violence and gore. And an excellent twist that you will never see coming!

While I’m sure its predecessor is too, Moriarty is full of pieces from the original series by Conan Doyle. They link nicely with this plot and, even better, you don’t need to be a Sherlock Holmes fanatic to understand them all! Whether you’re a Sherlock know it all (not me) or enjoyed the TV series and want to read a book with some of the characters (more my type! ) this is a perfect crime novel for all.

Anthony Horowitz uses amazing yet complicated vocabulary to really bring the world to life. This is one of the reasons I’d recommend Moriarty to committed readers, because the words and structure of the book can be difficult to follow. He creates vivid and gruesome images of the darkness within the streets of Victorian London. Anthony Horowitz writes with all the gory of Lee Child and the cleverness of Agatha Christie.

For the point listed above and a few scenes in the book that may disturb younger readers, I would recommend it to 13+. You might struggle to understand some references younger than that. But, Anthony Horowitz is – in my opinion – one of the greatest childrens’ authors ever. You don’t need to be younger to enjoy these books and I’d recommend them to children and adults alike. Here are some of my favourites:

POWER OF FIVE

POWER OF FIVE SERIES 
Unbeknownst to them, 5 teenagers with special powers are the only thing that stands between evil and all humanity. They must face their fears, form together and defeat evil before it is too late and the past repeats itself.

ALEX RIDER
Available at all good charity shops
Alex Rider is a normal teenager… except for the fact that he is an M16 agent of course. He travels the world unmasking criminals and fighting crime (lot less cheesy than it sounds!)

diamond brothers.jpg

THE DIAMOND BROTHERS
£10 from the book people with Groosham Grange –
which is also amazing
When bumbling Tim decides he wants to become a private detective, he’s going to need the help of his younger brother Nick… who ends up doing most of the work. This series is clever and funny, having you in stitches yet clueless until the very end. 

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Have you read this book? Any of Horowitz’s other ones? Or do you have a book recommendation? Let me know in the comments!

Published by Hundreds&Thousands

I’m a teenager (and a Hufflepuff) from Manchester. I like oversized jumpers, music that isn't on the radio anymore and books. Pretty much any book I can get my hands on but my favourites are Young Adult, fantasy and science fiction. One day, I decided to share some of my opinions on some great - and not so great - books to people around the world. And here it is! I really enjoy it and I hope you do too. The aim is hundreds and thousands of book reviews (see what I did there?) but I’m not quite up to that. Yet.

2 thoughts on “Book Review: Moriarty

    1. That’s a tricky one. I struggle quite a lot to come up with original content that isn’t just the same points. I like to look at other blogs and posts for inspiration.

      Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: