2015; 292 pages. Book 1 (out of 36) in the “Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery”
series. New Author? : Yes. Genres : Historical Mystery; Thriller; Sherlock
Holmes. Overall Rating: 9*/10.
Frederick Foster fell to his death from the Westminster Bridge last night. Or maybe he jumped. Or maybe someone pushed him. Mr. Foster was an American. A business card found on his body identifies
him as an employee of the Standard Oil Corporation.
Sherlock Holmes has been
summoned rather early in the morning to come to St. Thomas Hospital to examine
the corpse. His faithful aide, Dr.
Watson, is invited to come along.
Several important people have
also journeyed to the hospital to hear what Holmes has to say about whether this
was an accident, a suicide, or a murder.
They include England’s First Lord of the Admiralty, the Lord Chancellor
of Her Majesty’s courts, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner of London, and the Secretary of
State for War’s chief of staff. Oh yeah,
and the Prime Minister himself, Lord Salisbury.
Now why would such a bunch of
high muckamucks be interested about the death of an American businessman?
What’s To Like...
The Last Moriarty
is set in November, 1895 in the classic setting for Sherlock Holmes
stories: the greater London area. The tale
is presented the traditional way: via Dr. Watson’s journal. A number of characters
from the Arthur Conan Doyle series also show up here, including Inspector
Lestrade, the Baker Street Irregulars, and my personal favorite, Mycroft Holmes.
There are also lots of new
people introduced: some good guys, others baddies, but all of them interesting to meet. Two of them, Zoe Rosario and Lucy James, I feel certain will be sharing the spotlight with Holmes and Watson in future tales.
I was impressed with how
adeptly Charles Veley can spin a story in “Watson-esque” style. The storyline quickly gets more complicated,
and plot twists abound. There are even
several instances of Sherlock making those incredible deductions when meeting
someone, with onlookers gasping at how he could do that, and Holmes then explaining what observations
clued him in. I loved those interludes in Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories.
Everything builds to an exciting ending. The bad guys’ ultimate intentions are revealed and seemingly have things completely in their control. Their nefarious plans will fail, of course, but the fun is seeing just how that somehow transpires.
The chapters are short, with 66 of them
covering 292 pages, and The Last Moriarty is both a standalone novel and part of a series.
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.4/5
based on 5,461 ratings and 761 reviews.
Goodreads: 4.20/5 based on 4,030
ratings and 312 reviews.
Excerpts...
“Moriarty was both physically
unattractive—‘reptilian,’ as you have described him, Dr. Watson—and also
entirely lacking in ability to perform a musical composition in the spirit
intended by the composer. Due to his
mathematical gifts he was able to grasp the theoretical aspects of a
composition instantly, that much is true.
But he had no feel, no heart, to understand and project the emotion of
the composer, which is, of course, the sole reason for the existence of any
musical performance.” (loc. 1482)
Holmes would be accused of placing a
personal relationship above matters of national importance. I recalled an ironic poem by Mr. Kipling, the
gist of which was that we ordinary people frequently take an attitude of
superiority to soldiers, until the shooting starts and we need them to protect
us. The critics of Holmes, I thought,
would not hesitate to turn on him if he failed in his mission. (loc. 2294)
Kindle Details…
The
Last Moriarty sells for $3.99 at Amazon right now. The other e-books in this 36-book series are all priced within the $2.99-$4.99 range.
She appeared to be
in radiant health, possibly due to the beneficial effects of frequent exposure
to music. (loc.
577)
I didn’t note any cusswords
at all in The Last Moriarty, and that always impresses me. There’s action
and intrigue aplenty, yet I don’t recall any "adult situations."
A number of Sherlock Holmes
series have cropped up over the last couple decades, due to the copyrights
expiring on the characters in the series.
I’ve sampled several of them, and their quality ranges
from “pretty good” (including one co-written by Kareem Abdul Jabbar) to
“downright amateurish” (we’ll not name names).
The Last Moriarty comes
closer to duplicating Arthur Conan Doyle’s style of writing and storytelling
than any other series I’ve read, and that's a giant plus. Book
Two, The Wilhelm Conspiracy, is on my Kindle
and I’m eager to see how it compares to Book One. Stay tuned.
9 Stars. One last thing. I loved seeing chemistry play an important part of the storyline. White phosphorus, chloroform, and hyoscine all crop up, much to my delight. Okay, full disclosure, I am a career chemist, so I’m a bit prejudiced about this. But still, when chemicals are involved in the tale, it means that the author has done a bunch of research.
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