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This immersive, clever, and twisty Sherlock Holmes mystery adventure by the author of the acclaimed novel Turnglass pairs Holmes and Watson with two very unlikely allies-Moriarty and his trusted second, Moran-to solve a sinister plot that could threaten the very existence of the human race as we know it.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson have been hired by theater actor George Reynolds to find out why the audience who comes to see him perform onstage every night are the same people-only wearing different disguises each time. Is something sinister going on and, if so, what?
Meanwhile, Holmes's archenemy, Professor James Moriarty, is having problems of his own. Implicated in a rival gang leader's murder, Moriarty and his second, Moran, must go on the run from the police as they try to find out who's behind the frame-up.
But their investigation puts them in the way of Holmes and Watson and it's not long before all four realize they're being targeted by the same person. With million of lives on the line, Holmes and Moriarty must form an uneasy alliance in order to unmask the true villain.
For fans of Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk and Moriarty, this is the first Sherlock Holmes book endorsed by the Conan Doyle Estate in over a decade. Gareth Rubin writes about social affairs, travel, and the arts for British newspapers. In 2013, he directed a documentary about therapeutic art at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London (Bedlam). His books include The Great Cat Massacre, which details how the course of British history has been changed by people making mistakes; Liberation Square, a thriller set in Soviet-occupied London; and The Winter Agent, a thriller set in Paris in 1944. His 2023 novel Turnglass was a London Sunday Times bestseller. He lives in London. EXCERPT
Chapter 1
I have sometimes, in these poor reminiscences of my days spent with Sherlock Holmes, attempted to describe the sensations I felt when we were called in by the authorities to decipher an incident that had baffled their finest brains. Such descriptions have always irritated my companion, it must be said, because he insists that the interest in such cases should be in their pure mechanics, not unlike a manual on the correct design of a locomotive engine, rather than the human emotions that were bound up in them. I should, therefore, keep such color out of the narrative, he says. And yet, no matter the admiration I have always felt for Holmes-the greatest consulting detective that the world has ever known-I have always resisted him on that score.
And so I must relate what I felt in the light of a setting sun two days before the Christmas of 1889.
What I felt was fear. Fear like I had never known.
For the murder of Britain's Minister for War, at a time when all of Europe was on the brink of armed conflict, could have been the spark to set the whole continent alight. War, then, would have engulfed the greater part of the entire world. . . . What stood between us and those gates? It was a sight I would never have dreamed possible: the sight of the ever- righteous Sherlock Holmes and that malevolent denizen of the criminal netherworld, Professor James Moriarty, working together as if they were old friends, rather than two men sworn to each other's destruction. Working together to save all of Europe from catastrophe.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson have been hired by theater actor George Reynolds to find out why the audience who comes to see him perform onstage every night are the same people-only wearing different disguises each time. Is something sinister going on and, if so, what?
Meanwhile, Holmes's archenemy, Professor James Moriarty, is having problems of his own. Implicated in a rival gang leader's murder, Moriarty and his second, Moran, must go on the run from the police as they try to find out who's behind the frame-up.
But their investigation puts them in the way of Holmes and Watson and it's not long before all four realize they're being targeted by the same person. With million of lives on the line, Holmes and Moriarty must form an uneasy alliance in order to unmask the true villain.
For fans of Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk and Moriarty, this is the first Sherlock Holmes book endorsed by the Conan Doyle Estate in over a decade. Gareth Rubin writes about social affairs, travel, and the arts for British newspapers. In 2013, he directed a documentary about therapeutic art at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London (Bedlam). His books include The Great Cat Massacre, which details how the course of British history has been changed by people making mistakes; Liberation Square, a thriller set in Soviet-occupied London; and The Winter Agent, a thriller set in Paris in 1944. His 2023 novel Turnglass was a London Sunday Times bestseller. He lives in London. EXCERPT
Chapter 1
I have sometimes, in these poor reminiscences of my days spent with Sherlock Holmes, attempted to describe the sensations I felt when we were called in by the authorities to decipher an incident that had baffled their finest brains. Such descriptions have always irritated my companion, it must be said, because he insists that the interest in such cases should be in their pure mechanics, not unlike a manual on the correct design of a locomotive engine, rather than the human emotions that were bound up in them. I should, therefore, keep such color out of the narrative, he says. And yet, no matter the admiration I have always felt for Holmes-the greatest consulting detective that the world has ever known-I have always resisted him on that score.
And so I must relate what I felt in the light of a setting sun two days before the Christmas of 1889.
What I felt was fear. Fear like I had never known.
For the murder of Britain's Minister for War, at a time when all of Europe was on the brink of armed conflict, could have been the spark to set the whole continent alight. War, then, would have engulfed the greater part of the entire world. . . . What stood between us and those gates? It was a sight I would never have dreamed possible: the sight of the ever- righteous Sherlock Holmes and that malevolent denizen of the criminal netherworld, Professor James Moriarty, working together as if they were old friends, rather than two men sworn to each other's destruction. Working together to save all of Europe from catastrophe.