The House of Silk
Ratings67
Average rating4.1
Originally published on Unravellations.While I was reviewing [b:Death on a Pale Horse: Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service 14458877 Death on a Pale Horse Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service (Sherlock Holmes, #6) Donald Thomas https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346415560s/14458877.jpg 20101318], my attention was frequently directed to what a lot of reviewers viewed as a superior Sherlock Holmes canon extension - this book: The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz. Luckily, I had already borrowed it from the library and had lined it up behind Death On A Pale Horse on my reading list.In many ways, The House of Silk would definitely come up as superior if you're a bit of a purist. This is a good old-fashioned Sherlock Holmes romp, with our dear bungling narrator Dr. Watson, Holmes landing himself in trouble, the story setting never leaving England (unlike Death On A Pale Horse) and barely leaving London, a quest to uncover what lies behind a secret conspiracy and all that. I was very entertained throughout, and the plot chugs along at a pace, never leaving a boring moment.There are two things I'd like to point out about The House of Silk, though.Firstly, like most other spin-offs of famous works, there is a self-conscious way in which defining characteristics of Holmes are brought up, or canon stories are mentioned to. For example, the novel begins with Holmes deducing Watson's thoughts, Watson exclaiming at the devilry of it all, Holmes explaining his logical processes, and Watson finally admitting that it was simplicity itself. This famous scene from the canon is so frequently used in spin-offs, adaptations and anything depicting Sherlock Holmes that I could honestly have done without it. It was done once, and brilliantly, in the original books. Enough of that. It is too fantastical to assume that such a specific scene could be replicated so many times in real life between two people. If I had been Watson, if Holmes tried to intrude upon our thoughts in such a manner for the second time, I certainly wouldn't have been as surprised and incredulous as the first time, and would've been less than polite in extricating his methods from him. In my opinion, if a spin-off work aims to fit itself into a canon chronology of an original work, then it should note that these little references and scenes, of which the original work is famous for, is really unlikely to happen again at another time period, even if one would've liked to use it as a signifier that hey, this is the famous mind-reading Sherlock Holmes that we're writing about.Secondly - and this isn't a negative point this time - Horowitz injects certain points of reflections in the story which I found interesting. In the novel, Watson is supposed to be writing about this adventure of the House of Silk from his declining years, when his wife, all his friends, including Lestrade and Holmes, have passed on. As such, it is realistic to assume that Watson would be looking back with a broader perspective of a wizened elderly man, so I liked this bit. It also served as a reason for Horowitz to criticize Doyle and the times he lived in. The poignant reflections I can remember off hand are: 1) the state of the London child beggars, treated as part of the streets itself and handled almost thoughtlessly by Doyle in the canon; 2) the personality of Lestrade, described as incompetent by Doyle, but Horowitz redeems him here and portrays him not only as being effective and resourceful for someone who doesn't have a brain like Holmes's, but also someone who, though he is frequently a mildly antagonistic competitor, is also a firm ally of Holmes to the end; and 3) the flitting presence of Mrs Hudson throughout the canon - Horowitz's interpretation of Watson acknowledges that he barely took the time to get to know his landlady and didn't know much about her beyond her showing in clients at Baker Street. I enjoyed reading these little points, though it pertains to the author's own interpretation and criticism of the Holmes canon, but it ended a nice extra dimension and food for thought for fans reading this book.Although the revelation that the House of Silk was actually some sort of whore-house where young homeless boys were presumably forced into prostitution, I thought that was a slightly disappointing resolution. Perhaps it had to do with my expectations being something along the lines of an international criminal syndicate, which would run closer to the Holmes canon. Doyle rarely, if ever, wanders to the particular part of London that deals with sex crimes and sex-related vices. However, I acknowledge that such a concept is conceivable for the Victorian era; though they prided themselves on morality, such a strait-laced society bred a lot of perverseness.I enjoyed the ending where surprise after surprise comes in. Along with Watson, I was also duped into thinking Dr Silkin's House of Wonders was where the answer to the mystery lay. I also believed that Holmes escaped prison by hiding in a coffin exiting the prison mortuary. Being befuddled and told I was wrong is always good in any mystery novel. The Carstairs mystery was at once mystifying but also obvious. I knew something was wrong with either Edmund or Catherine Carstairs (or both) from the beginning, but I couldn't make up my mind what. At the beginning, I found Catherine Carstairs suspicious because of how she happened to enter the exact same room that the burglary took place, and she conveniently lost her key. Perhaps readers were meant to feel that way. Later on, when she comes to Watson telling him about her sister in law Eliza Carstairs's illness, I began to wonder if it was perhaps Edmund Carstairs that was the suspicious character, secretly poisoning his own sister. After all, the street urchin Ross recognised Edmund Carstairs and feared him. I thought Edmund was the one who had killed Keelan O'Donaghue, through some elaborate scheme. It was only when we returned to the Carstairs at the very end of the novel, after the House of Silk is revealed, that I suddenly made the link that Edmund must've been a patron of the House of Silk, before Holmes explained it in the narrative. That part didn't catch me by surprise. The bit about his wife actually being Keelan O'Donaghue did, though! I had no expectation of that, maybe because I may have missed a description talking about how Keelan was slimmer in stature and so on. The part about poisoning her sister in law by her bath salts was also interestingly novel, though I'm not quite sure if it is physiologically possible.All in all, I would recommend this book for lovers of mystery novels, and especially those who are already fans of the Holmes canon. It wouldn't disappoint.
Written in the same style as Conan Doyles originals and eminently enjoyable, not sure how they could wangle any more novels out of it though?
A new Sherlock Holmes novel, licensed by the Conan Doyle estate, this is set not long before the Reichenbach Falls incident, although it's told from the POV of a Watson living in a nursing home some time during World War I. There are obvious differences from Doyle's originals, not least of which is the length, which here is that of a modern novel, not the shorter works of the genuine canon.
It's quite a dark story, at times deliberately focussing on the seamier side of Victorian London, rather than the wealthier circles in which Holmes normally moved. Nor can one imagine Doyle writing about... well, what the story turns out to concern.
Still, it's quite a good pastiche of the style in other respects, and the story is twisty-turny enough, full of a lot of unsavoury characters doing their best to hide the secret of the House of Silk.
Sherlock Holmes has entertained readers since his first appearance in 1887, with Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet. With the publication of The House of Silk, Anthony Horowitz becomes the first author to receive approval from the Conan Doyle Estate to publish a new Sherlock Holmes novel. The world's most famous consulting detective returns in a tale both immensely convoluted, and intriguing to the very last detail.
Synopsis for The House of Silk:
London, 1890. 221B Baker St. A fine art dealer named Edmund Carstairs visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson to beg for their help. He is being menaced by a strange man in a flat cap – a wanted criminal who seems to have followed him all the way from America. In the days that follow, his home is robbed, his family is threatened. And then the first murder takes place.
Almost unwillingly, Holmes and Watson find themselves being drawn ever deeper into an international conspiracy connected to the teeming criminal underworld of Boston, the gaslit streets of London, opium dens and much, much more. And as they dig, they begin to hear the whispered phrase-the House of Silk-a mysterious entity that connects the highest levels of government to the deepest depths of criminality. Holmes begins to fear that he has uncovered a conspiracy that threatens to tear apart the very fabric of society.
The House of Silk
The House of Silk
must
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The House of Silk
Having read all of the Sherlock Holmes canon, and having read Horowitz's The Magpie Murders, I decided to give House of Silk a try.
I am glad to say that I was pleasantly surprised. The writing closely imitates Arthur Conan Doyle's, while being a tad cleaner and more pleasant to read. Likewise, the characters have rounded edges and slightly more compassion and kindness than I remember from the original stories. It made me feel more connected to them.
The subject matter, I will say, seemed heavier than any Sherlock Holmes I had read before. Here it feels slightly more modern. But, unfortunately, it is not unrealistic. There were many atrocities committed during those times that were not discussed then but we know of them now.
I think I will read the next one in the series, despite knowing it has worse reviews. I haven't got much to lose.
Anyone who has been following my reviews so far knows that I love a good mystery, and I love Sherlock Holmes. Ever since I first read The Hound of the Baskervilles when I was twelve, I have been irrevocably hooked on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories and this most famous and quintessential of detectives. Dupin and Poirot fans are free to look at me askance; I know that Poirot is important to the development of the mystery genre as a whole, and Dupin is the template upon which Holmes is based, but they cannot displace Holmes in my regard and affection. Childhood bias? Perhaps. I did not encounter Dupin until I was fourteen, and Poirot until I was sixteen. By then I had been reading Holmes for a good long while, and could not help but compare Poirot and Dupin to him.
Holmes, in essence, took on a life of his own in my imagination - something which happens to all the best characters, I think. And when a character does just that, said character is no longer restricted to the works of the author that created it. This is why there are so many stories about Holmes not written by Doyle - some of them good, and some of them bad. The last book (or set of books, really) that I read in this vein is The Game by Laurie R. King, which is part of a series of books about Holmes' finding partnership (and love!) with a woman named Mary Russell, who also happens to be his intellectual equal. But I had gotten rather tired of this series, and so have taken a break from it - and from all things Holmes, actually.
That is, of course, until I stumbled on The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. At first I was ready to bypass it for now as another Holmes pastiche, but put on the brakes when I found out that it is an “official” Holmes book - official in the sense that it is licensed by the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Estate. Essentially, this is a “canonical” Holmes story, the first, if I am not mistaken, since Doyle passed away. And just because of that, I moved it to the top of my reading list, and as soon as I finished reading Cherie Priest's Boneshaker (the last book I read and reviewed), I dove straight (and happily) into this one.
The House of Silk is narrated by Dr. John Watson, now at the end of his life, and simply waiting to pass into the next one. He has recorded faithfully all the adventures and cases he and his friend Sherlock Holmes have encountered together in their long friendship, but he has one more case he wishes to put down, one last story to tell before he passes away. It's rather difficult for me to pin down when, precisely, in the chronology of Holmes stories the events of the House of Silk take place, but I am quite certain that it occurs before the events at the Reichenbach Falls, and after the events of The Red-Headed League. Those who have a more recent memory of the Holmes stories will be able to fit it into the chronology more accurately than I can, I am sure.
Whatever the case may be, Watson explains that he could not write this story until this, the last few moments of his life, for a variety of reasons, one of which is that he promised a host of people he would not write of it until the very last because of their involvement in it. But the primary reason that Watson gives is that the nature of the crime itself is so heinous that writing about it so soon after the events of the crime took place, even if he did not choose to publish it, was a far too difficult task. And while the distance in terms of time have made the writing of it somewhat easier, the recollection of those events is not any easier on Watson. But he must tell it, and so he does.
And Watson is very much right: the crime is indeed heinous - at least, in comparison to all the other crimes documented in the other Holmes stories. No doubt murder is heinous, but the particular nature of the crime at the center of The House of Silk is understandably disturbing enough for men of Holmes and Watson's time that it comes as no surprise Watson would want to distance himself from it, at least for a certain amount of time. A sex ring masquerading as a school for street children, whose clientele are wealthy pedophiles with a taste for young boys, is no unique thing to the twenty-first century reader; but it is entirely conceivable that such a thing would have been utterly appalling to both Watson and Holmes. Such a thing, had it been discovered in Victorian London, would have been sensational, especially if the type of clientele welcomed at the establishment had been made known. While I do not doubt it is entirely possible such a thing did indeed exist in actual history, the fact of the matter is that such a crime, such a story, is not a part of the traditional Holmes canon; in fact, in a concluding essay to the copy I have, Horowitz makes it clear that even murder was a rather infrequent crime in the Holmes and Watson case files. So though I, as a reader of mysteries and a child of my time, finds the crime rather underwhelming in terms of shock value, I also know enough of Holmes canon and of Victorian London itself to know how utterly diabolical the nature of this crime would seem to people of that time and age. Then again, I do not read Holmes stories for their shock value, as that is not their point.
Something that might strike the reader within the first few pages is the tone of Watson's narrative voice. It seems a little off-kilter somehow, like this is not the Watson we readers know and remember from the original stories. This should come as no surprise, since Doyle isn't the one writing it, and no matter how faithful Horowitz tries to be to Doyle's tone, he can never truly capture it, simply because he is not Doyle. But this is hardly a negative thing, for although Horowitz is not pitch-perfect Doyle, he does remain faithful to the spirit of Doyle's originals, and that is far more than I could ask for, considering the other works out there that don't even stick to that one basic rule.
And now that I speak of Watson, it must be said that, although this is a Sherlock Holmes story beyond a doubt, I rather think that this is more about Watson than anything else, and I mean this beyond the fact that he is the narrator. There is a point in the story wherein Sherlock is removed from the story, and Watson is left out on his own to figure things out. He manages to do well on his own, with some help from Lestrade (Mycroft, surprisingly enough, has his hands tied earlier in the novel, and so is of no help) and one of his discoveries does eventually lead to crucial information. It is during this part of the novel that the other characters - yes, even Lestrade - get a chance to shine. I rather appreciate Horowitz taking the time out to give the other characters this chance, since Doyle so very rarely lets them do so. I am especially pleased with the way Lestrade was written here. In the Doyle stories he tends to get the short end of the stick, and Watson (as the ostensible narrator of those stories) does admit this in the course of the narration. Horowitz's version of Lestrade is still very true to Doyle's, but with a far more human face.
One other character makes a crucial appearance in this novel, and it was this appearance that was truly one of the highlights for me. Although one of the reader's first instincts is to pin this whole affair on Moriarty, it turns out that he was not his idea - especially since he tells Watson precisely that in a scene reminiscent in its intensity to some of the most famous confrontation scenes in the Doyle originals. While Moriarty does not give Watson his name, it becomes clear very early on just who Watson is talking to. Horowitz's characterization of Moriarty is incredibly enjoyable to read, despite the fact that he appears for only a brief moment in the course of the novel. It emphasizes the fact that Moriarty is truly Holmes's polar opposite: sharing all of Holmes's genius, and even his morals, because although Moriarty is a criminal (he even uses the word to describe himself in his conversation with Watson) he does have a code of behavior, and what the House of Silk does is beyond the pale even for someone like him.
All told, The House of Silk is an excellent addition to the Holmes canon. It has all the hallmarks of an excellent Holmes story, and a little something extra, besides. While it is rather longer than the novels Doyle wrote about Holmes (The Sign of Four being my favorite novel, and my absolute favorite Holmes story), I do think the scale of the story requires the extra length. After all, this crime is something extraordinary and horrific, quite unlike the other cases Holmes and Watson has encountered before. Fortunately, Horowitz does Holmes and Watson and all of a Holmes fan's favorite characters justice, and maybe someday soon, he'll be asked to write about them again. I definitely look forward to that.
And so, we have a new Holmes book. What's it like? Faithful to the original? Worth your time? Read on to find out ...
The House of Silk begins with a brief, personal recounting of events by Watson. He informs readers about the first meeting of Watson and Holmes. Watson also mentions a case that was:
too shocking to be revealed until now....
He introduces the client of "The Flat Cap case". This is Edmund Carstairs, an art dealer. A gang of Irish robbers destroyed Carstairs paintings and he turns to Sherlock Holmes for help. Holmes employs the aid of the Baker Street Irregulars. They find the supposed Keelan O'Donaghue, one of the leaders of the gang. One of the newest recruits of the Irregulars, a boy named Ross, stations himself outside to wait for Holmes, Watson, and Mr. Carstairs. When the group finally arrives, Ross appears horror-stricken. Later he's found murdered by thugs of the House of Silk. When Holmes makes inroads with the House of Silk case, he is framed for murder and sent to prison. Meanwhile, Watson meets with a mystery criminal. This is later revealed as Professor Moriarty, who provides him with a key to free Holmes from prison. Professor Moriarty's motives are uncertain, except that he wishes Holmes to rid the world of the House of Silk, whose activities appall even him. When Watson arrives at the prison, he discovers Holmes has escaped of his own accord. Holmes has disguised as an aide to the prison doctor, whom he had once helped as a client. Various leads draw them to a travelling funfair, where they are ambushed, before being saved by Lestrade.
Holmes, Watson and Lestrade make their way to the "House of Silk". This is a club operated by a pastor and his wife who also govern a boy's orphanage. They rent the boys to wealthy customers. Scotland Yard round up the members but despite their arrests the case does not come to trial. This is due to the involvement of a member of the royal family. It is revealed that Mrs. Carstairs is the true person responsible for The Flat Cap case, being the second leader of the Irish gang.
So, all the elements are there: the data, the data, the data. Nothing of consequence overlooked. And yet can Horowitz, like Holmes, make from these drops of water the possibilities of an Atlantic or a Niagara? Can he astonish us? Can he thrill us? Are there “the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis” that we yearn for? Emphatically, yes
I've always refused to read any non-canon Sherlock Holmes stuff since I first read the originals. All of them seemed to focus on Moriarity anyways, and that was kind of annoying since he wasn't actually that prevalent in the stories. Anyways, I saw that this one was endorsed by Conan Doyle's family, so I gave it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised! Horowitz did a pretty good job with following Conan Doyle's style, and it felt like I was reading another Sherlock Holmes story. Overall, I think it was really well done, my only issue was that it felt like the plot was dragging at times, so it felt a little boring here and there. I'm glad I finally convinced myself to read this though, and I can't wait to read the sequel next.