Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles, Kim Newman

"Imagine the twisted evil twins of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson and you have the dangerous duo of Professor James Moriarty - wily, snake-like, fiercely intelligent, terrifyingly unpredictable - and Colonel Sebastian Basher Moran - violent, politically incorrect, debauched. Together they run London crime, owning police and criminals alike. When a certain Irene Adler turns up on their doorstep with a proposition, neither man is able to resist. An entertaining and wickedly humorous crime adventure from the bestselling writer of Anno Dracula."











Supposedly written by Colonel Moran, colleague of Professor James Moriarty (from The Adventure of the Empty House), this is a loving pastiche of the Conan Doyle Holmes stories, victorian literature and pulp adventure novels. Literary mash-ups are fairly common, but this is one of the best, combining disparate plot strands from dozens of books and tying them all together around the skeletons of various Holmes shorts, from The Red Headed League to the Greek Interpreter, and, of course, Scandal, Hound and Falls.

Originally written as multiple short stories for magazines, they hold up remarkably well and the books format works terrifically. It helps that Moran, like Flashman before him, is the kind of easily readable rogue that makes base villainy so enjoyable. It's easy to compare these to a less inclusive Bond, but the real joy for anyone who has read Holmes is in picking out the references.

Newman's grasp of the wider genre is massive, as his work on Anno Dracula has shown, and references are peppered through the book which should encourage anyone reading to go and find out more. It rewards close reading, and the end notes give some insight into where more obscure characters come from. Realising that you're reading the other half, or a parallel, to a Holmes tale is great fun.

Anno Dracula may be more fun, but this is arguably more readble, and much like the Holmes books serves as a nice series to dip in and out of, with the short story nature of the tales making it easy to pick up and put down when you want to.

Also Try;
Alan Moore, League of Extraordinary Gentleman
Kim Newman, Anno Dracula,
Sir Arther Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes
Philip Jose Farmer, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg