“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 in [Sherlock’s] distinguished legacy. . . . Admirers of Horowitz’s ITV series, Foyle’s War, and Sherlockians will delight in equal measure. With a 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
“Cliff-hanger plotting. . . . Watson’s elegiac voice should silence the objections of even the most persnickety Sherlock scholar.”
—National Public Radio (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
“A tone-perfect, action-packed story of corruption, greed, and dissolution, all the while capturing the sights, smells, and social problems of 1890s London. . . . This reader, albeit no Holmes expert, totally forgot the novel wasn’t from Doyle himself. Grade: A.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Worthy of [its] canonical inspiration . . . an impressive read. . . . Horowitz plots masterfully, foregrounding Holmes’s trademark investigative techniques against Watson’s pacey narration.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“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’s churchwarden pipe as he sorts through the evidence.”
—San Diego Union Tribune
“The hype surrounding what’s being billed as the first pastiche ever officially approved by the Conan Doyle estate is amply justified. . . . 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 dip again into Watson’s trove of untold tales.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Nicely captures the storytelling tone of Holmes’s inventor in a galloping adventure that boasts enough twists, ominous turns, and urgent nocturnal escapades to make modern moviemakers salivate. . . . 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