Reviews
The Financial Times
Mark Gatiss
“Handsome, authentic and stylish … We are in the best of hands here and there are passages that, in their fluidity and narrative pace, beautifully evoke the great Doyle’s muscular and thoroughly modern style.”
11/11/2011
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The Independent
Christopher Fowler
“With all of this baggage, how can anyone tackle an "official" new adventure with a straight face? Anthony Horowitz, whose book is endorsed by the Conan Doyle Estate, solves the dilemma in the most direct manner possible, by writing a terrific mystery whose hero happens to be Holmes. But he also manages to channel Conan Doyle with uncanny accuracy, knitting together a much more satisfying full-length adventure than, say, The Sign of Four.”
13/11/2011
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The Times
Marcel Berlins
“He gives us the whole works: gaslight, pea-soupers, hansom cabs, the Baker Street Irregulars, Mycroft, Inspector Lestrade and all the other beloved Sherlockian accessories. It is best not to try to summarise the convoluted plot. Horowitz has captured Holmes Heaven.”
12/11/2011
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Times Literary Supplement
Toby Lichtig
“Like the best Holmes stories, it treads the line, in both narrative and language, between cliché and creativity, and is by turns gripping, playful, tortuous and cosily predictable, though the great detective himself would doubtless dismiss it as nothing but “vulgar romanticism”. ”
06/01/2012
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The Independent
Barry Forshaw
“Right from the start, Horowitz implies that things will not be quite as we have encountered them before. He is a canny writer who knows that the modern reader will expect a move into territory that would have been forbidden for Doyle, and freights in some startling revelations. They are... but what reviewer could be so cruel? ”
16/11/2011
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The Guardian
Ian Samson
“The characters are, as Conan Doyle himself would have them, as close to cliché as good writing allows. Horowitz's Watson cleverly excuses himself right at the start from any complaints about style or content by reminding us of Holmes's oft-stated judgment of the stories: "He accused me more than once of vulgar romanticism, and thought me no better than any Grub Street scribbler."”
27/10/2011
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The Sunday Times
Peter Kemp
“Anthony Horowitz’s approach (which has won him the first seal of approval to be handed out by the Conan Doyle estate) is to replicate the style, suspense and atmosphere of the original stories while adding new facets. Familiar characters are given aspects beyond their customary roles. ”
23/10/2011
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The Spectator
Nicholas Lezard
“We want the Baker Street Irregulars, Lestrade, Mycroft, pea-soupers, sinister foreigners, grotesque crimes, opium dens, and above all, we want Holmes being himself: the only intellectual this country has ever taken to its bosom ... Horowitz, despite having a rather suspicious sounding foreign name, does a thoroughly first-rate job, cramming all the above desired elements in and just steering clear of making the novel look over-stuffed”
19/11/2011
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