For the first since April 1927 the famous detective Sherlock Holmes is back in print with a new canonized adventure chronicled by Dr. John H. Watson.

That is correct, the Conan Doyle Estate, who has ultimate control over the writings and characters developed Arthur Conan Doyle, has authorized commissioned a new Sherlock Holmes novel. The author they chose to write is iconic novel was none other than Anthony Horowitz of Alex Rider fame, which by the way are fairly good young adult adventure books.

The book in question, “The House of Silk” , was published a few months ago on November 1, 2011. Luckily Boise has a good library system and I was able to read this iconic book within a timely manner. 😀

My reaction to said book? I loved it!!

It was captivating and thrilling from the get go with Dr. Watson writing in the preface why he choose to lock the manuscript up in a vault with instruction for them to be published 100 years later:

“It was impossible before – and I am not just referring to Holmes’ well-known aversion to publicity. No, the events which I am about to describe were simply too monstrous, too shocking to appear in print. They still are. It is no exaggeration to suggest that they would tear apart the entire fabric of society and, particularly at a time of war, this is something I cannot risk.”

In having finished the novel, I do have to say that Dr. Watson was correct – the crime that was committed involved people throughout the highest reaches of society and would have caused untold damages had the people of London known about it at the time. Granted, in hindsight, that might not have been that bad of a think knowing the nature of the crime…

Regardless, the novel is self was fantastic! I can’t really say if the writing style was “Doyle-iss” as I have not read the original is quite some time – that and I’m not really a textual criticism scholar. All I can say was that enjoyed myself thoroughly and hope that Anthony Horowitz will write some more. 😀