The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel [Hardcover]

Anthony Horowitz (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 1, 2011

For the first time in its one-hundred-and-twenty-five-year history, the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate has authorized a new Sherlock Holmes novel.

Once again, THE GAME'S AFOOT...

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 Arthur Conan Doyle Estate chose the celebrated, #1 New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz to write The House of Silk because of his proven ability to tell a transfixing story and for his passion for all things Holmes. Destined to become an instant classic, The House of Silk brings Sherlock Holmes back with all the nuance, pacing, and almost superhuman powers of analysis and deduction that made him the world's greatest detective, in a case depicting events too shocking, too monstrous to ever appear in print...until now.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Exceptionally entertaining ... one can only applaud Horowitz's skill ... impressive ... an altogether terrific period thriller and one of the best Sherlockian pastiches of our time." (The Washington Post )

"The latest edition to [Sherlock's] distinguished legacy...Admirers of Horowitz's ITV series, Foyle's War, and Sherlockians will delight in equal measure. With consummate grasp, Horowitz unfolds an intricate and rewarding mystery in the finest Victorian tradition...For all its deft and loving fidelity, THE HOUSE OF SILK sees the great detective in grisly and unfamiliar straits." (Vanity Fair )

"Cliffhanger plotting... Watson's elegiac voice should silence the objections of even the most persnickety Sherlock scholar." (NPR )

"A book firmly rooted in the style of Doyle, faithful to the character as created and with just enough wiggle room to allow the author to say all the things he's been longing to say about the world of 221B Baker Street...THE HOUSE OF SILK will satisfy." (The Huffington Post )

"Enormously involving and entertaining, and even funny in parts... Classic tales such as the Arthur Conan Doyle stories carry the ideals and anxieties of their age, and of later ones. THE HOUSE OF SILK capably does the same." (The Philadelphia Inquirer )

"The hype surrounding what's being billed as the first pastiche ever officially approved by the Conan Doyle estate is amply justified ... authentic. Horowitz gets everything right-the familiar narrative voice, brilliant deductions, a very active role for Watson, and a perplexing and disturbing series of puzzles to unravel-and the legion of fans of the originals will surely be begging for Horowitz to again dip into Watson's trove of untold tales." (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

"Nicely captures the storytelling tone of Holmes' inventor in a galloping adventure that boasts enough twists, ominous turns and urgent nocturnal escapades to make modern moviemakers salivate ... Author Horowitz delivers some dramatic tableaux in these pages, including a railway robbery, a prison escape and a horse-drawn carriage chase ... the Holmes we see here is just as cryptic and clever as we've come to expect." (Kirkus Reviews )

"Horowitz truly pulls off the wonderful illusion that Arthur Conan Doyle left us one last tale... Close your eyes and you can smell the shag tobacco of Holmes' church warded pipe as he sorts through the evidence." (San Diego Union Tribune )

"Worthy of [its] canonical inspiration ... an impressive read ... Horowitz plots masterfully, foregrounding Holmes' trademark investigative techniques against Watson's pacey narration." (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel )

"A tone-perfect, action-packed story of corruption, greed and dissolution, all the while capturing the sights, smells and social problems of 1890's London...This reader, albeit no Holmes expert, totally forgot the novel wasn't from Doyle himself." (The Cleaveland Plain Dealer )

"An homage to the Holmes canon; Horowitz does a fine job with the atmospheric setting and tense plotting, and he captures Watson's voice and Holmes' character well. The crimes they uncover will, even in the 21^st century, have a shocking ripped-from-the-headlines impact." (St. Petersburg Times )

"Can Horowitz astonish us? Can he thrill us? ... Emphatically, yes!" (The Guardian (UK) )

"The author excels at turning his readers into 'Watsons' who are devoted to Holmes and enthusiastically leap into danger just to follow the detective throughout a case...The characterization of Holmes and Watson is true to the original but also offers greater insight into a fascinating friendship...Horowitz even knows how to write a riveting chase scene that, were it filmed for Ritchie's movie franchise, would certainly be an adrenaline-fueled cinematic climax...for its attention to character, quality of plot, and Horowitz's familiarity with the original stories, it scores highly." (PopMatters.com )

About the Author

Anthony Horowitz is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Alex Rider series and the award-winning writer of PBS's Foyle's War, Collision, Injustice as well as many other film and television projects. He lives in London.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Mulholland Books; 1 edition (November 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316196991
• ISBN-13: 978-0316196994
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (172 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anthony Horowitz's life might have been copied from the pages of Charles Dickens or the Brothers Grimm. Born in 1956 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a family of wealth and status, Anthony was raised by nannies, surrounded by servants and chauffeurs. His father, a wealthy businessman, was, says Mr. Horowitz, "a fixer for Harold Wilson." What that means exactly is unclear -- "My father was a very secretive man," he says-- so an aura of suspicion and mystery surrounds both the word and the man. As unlikely as it might seem, Anthony's father, threatened with bankruptcy, withdrew all of his money from Swiss bank accounts in Zurich and deposited it in another account under a false name and then promptly died. His mother searched unsuccessfully for years in attempt to find the money, but it was never found. That too shaped Anthony's view of things. Today he says, "I think the only thing to do with money is spend it." His mother, whom he adored, eccentrically gave him a human skull for his 13th birthday. His grandmother, another Dickensian character, was mean-spirited and malevolent, a destructive force in his life. She was, he says, "a truly evil person", his first and worst arch villain. "My sister and I danced on her grave when she died," he now recalls.
A miserably unhappy and overweight child, Anthony had nowhere to turn for solace. "Family meals," he recalls, "had calories running into the thousands&. I was an astoundingly large, round child&." At the age of eight he was sent off to boarding school, a standard practice of the times and class in which he was raised. While being away from home came as an enormous relief, the school itself, Orley Farm, was a grand guignol horror with a headmaster who flogged the boys till they bled. "Once the headmaster told me to stand up in assembly and in front of the whole school said, 'This boy is so stupid he will not be coming to Christmas games tomorrow.' I have never totally recovered." To relieve his misery and that of the other boys, he not unsurprisingly made up tales of astounding revenge and retribution.


Anthony Horowitz is perhaps the busiest writer in England. He has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. He writes in a comfortable shed in his garden for up to ten hours per day. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he has also written episodes of several popular TV crime series, including Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. He has written a television series Foyle's War, which recently aired in the United States, and he has written the libretto of a Broadway musical adapted from Dr. Seuss's book, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. His film script The Gathering has just finished production. And&oh yes&there are more Alex Rider novels in the works. Anthony has also written the Diamond Brothers series.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

122 of 135 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars He's Back! And the game's afoot! November 4, 2011

By Aftermath

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

60 years ago, as a teenager, I devoured the complete Sherlock Holmes lexicon with the greatest of excitement and joy. Since then I have read, watched and listened carefully -- Holmes-like -- to all things Sherlock. Sometimes pleased (the early Britt portrayals) sometimes disgusted (Robert Downey, Jr, need I say more?) I have hungered and thirsted for the real Sherlock. And here he is, in his full and real glory, on the trail of the bad guys, making progress from the slightest of clues, adding two and two and getting the real answer, not the four I get with the evidence. This is the real Holmes in the real London with the real characters we knew and loved but with devilishly new crimes to stop and perplexing trails to follow. As anyone who watched "Foyle's War" knows, Horowitz is a genius, never more than here. Every nuance, every phrase, every fog-lit street, everything is right -- Sherlock and Watson are back, and we can all say hallelujah!

83 of 92 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Over Hyped But Readable November 8, 2011

By G. Peter Wityk

Format:Hardcover

The House of Silk is over hyped which probably caused me to rate it lower than I might have had it not been touted as the second coming of Conan Doyle.

First, there have been many authorized additions to the Canon. This is hardly the first and most definitely not the best. My personal favorite is The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Adrian Conan Doyle ( son and 'literary executor' of Arthur Conan Doyle ) and John Dickson Carr ( well worth reading for his own stories under his name and his pen name of Carter Dickson ).

Second, Horowitz seems to have attempted to modernize the attitudes, actions and style to suit today's audience. We lose some of the Victorian charm and the feeling of being in another era. I find that detracts from the book.

Third, both the Holmes' seem somewhat out of character. Sherlock is less the analytic machine, cold and emotionless and more moody, brooding and a bit weepy. It takes too long for him to return to character. Mycroft is more concerned with keeping his position than doing what is right for the country. It feels like Horowitz takes book time to allow his characters to find their pace.

Fourth, Horowitz finds it necessary to provide a back story in the preface that is not necessary to the story. I didn't find that it added much beyond page count.

In spite of all those negative words, Horowitz is an experience and capable writer. It may take a while to for the reader to discover that. And, eventually there is a sufficiency of action and mystery to keep the puzzle solver distracted and attracted.

The bottom line is that it is a book worth reading. It's just not as good or as unique as the publisher would like us to believe.

56 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Horowitz Nailed It November 7, 2011

By Morris Massel

Format:Hardcover

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz is a new Sherlock Holmes novel, which is the first officially sanctioned take-off of Sherlock Holmes by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate. For the Sherlock Holmes lover, this is a must read. For everyone else, I'd highly recommend it.

Anthony Horowitz is a famed writer of young adult action novels (the Alex Rider series) and also an acclaimed writer of the PBS series Foyle's War (a must see for mystery lovers/WWII buffs). His connections to Sherlock Holmes and the Canon were not as established.

Conan Doyle had a distinct writing style (somewhat sparse on detail of Victorian life but more than enough to fill the canvas) and created vivid and memorable characters. Although Holmes solved his share of murders, he also solved all kinds of other crimes and mysteries. Creating the perfect pastiche requires echoing Conan Doyle and remembering that Holmes was not a superhero (as he is portrayed in the Robert Downey, Jr. movies).

In The House of Silk, Horowitz gets it right on all counts. The tone, the writing, the characters and even the plotting matches up beautifully with Conan Doyle. Horowitz also brings back other minor characters from the Canon for non-distracting cameo appearances, which is a delight for lovers of the Canon. Yet, Horowitz makes Sherlock his own, creating a story with a bit more action than Conan Doyle gave us, which will keep you glued to the book. The story is a classic tale of Holmes and Watson, with Watson as the narrator. Watson writes the story after Holmes has passed away and seals it away for one hundred years because the story is to explosive to be shared during their lifetimes. From there, the story unfolds with two unrelated story lines, the action builds and Horowitz captures your imagination. If like mysteries at all, this is one not to miss. If you love Sherlock Holmes, this is a must read.