I have never read anything by Horowitz and it has been a while since I have read Conan Doyle, but I felt like it was time for some lighter fiction reading, after all the non-fiction I read this year.

The book is narrated by Frederick Chase, a few years after the events described took place. The story starts at Reichenbach Falls, where Chase, working for Pinkerton, travels after he finds out that Moriarty is dead. There he meets Athelney Jones, obsessed with Holmes and his methods, as well as proving that he can become Holmes’ equal. Together they return to London to find the man that came from US and is quickly filling the empty space that Moriarty’s death created in the crime world.

The story is well paced, London is very atmospheric, tension is expertly built up and twists happen at all the right places. Probably if someone really focuses they can figure out who is the shade mastermind behind all new crime, but why spoil the fun? Characters are well built and overall it was a very pleasant read. It is obvious that Horowitz has plenty of experience as a writer. I will definitely try to get my hands on more of his books as soon as my book-buying ban is over (so far I have been very  brave and I haven’t bought a single book this year, which means that my TBR is down by 25 books by now… 375 to go), whenever this will happen… the problem is I didn’t exactly decide how long it will last, I started small with just January, but here we are in April and surprisingly it was not that difficult so far, only two times I had to put all the books back on the shelves in a bookstore when my conscience kicked in.

Time for an embarrassing secret – Anthony Horowitz apparently wrote majority of the episodes for early series of the Midsomer Murders (that’s not the embarrassing part), which is one of my favorite series of all time (that is). It always fascinated me how they can finish off an average of three people per episode and still have people living in Midsomer, it’s not like they kill only tourists…

What’s your guilty pleasure when it comes to series?

Photo by Violetta Kaszubowska @ vkphotospace