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The House of Silk  By  cover art

The House of Silk

By: Anthony Horowitz
Narrated by: Sir Derek Jacobi
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Publisher's summary

THE GAME'S AFOOT... It is November 1890 and London is gripped by a merciless winter. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are enjoying tea by the fire when an agitated gentleman arrives unannounced at 221b Baker Street. He begs Holmes for help, telling the unnerving story of a scar-faced man with piercing eyes who has stalked him in recent weeks. Intrigued by the man's tale, Holmes and Watson find themselves swiftly drawn into a series of puzzling and sinister events, stretching from the gas-lit streets of London to the teeming criminal underworld of Boston. As the pair delve deeper into the case, they stumble across a whispered phrase 'the House of Silk': a mysterious entity and foe more deadly than any Holmes has encountered, and a conspiracy that threatens to tear apart the very fabric of society itself. With devilish plotting and excellent characterisation, bestselling author Anthony Horowitz delivers a first-rate Sherlock Holmes mystery for a modern readership whilst remaining utterly true to the spirit of the original Conan Doyle books. Sherlock Holmes is back with all the nuance, pace and powers of deduction that make him the world's greatest and most celebrated detective.
©2011 Anthony Horowitz (P)2011 Orion Publishing Group Ltd

What listeners say about The House of Silk

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A worthy addition to the Holmes canon superbly narrated by Derek Jacobi

With The House of Silk, Horowitz has written a worthy successor to the books by Conan Doyle. The story captures the atmosphere of the London in the late 19th century and of Watson and Holmes themselves superbly well, and moves along at a good pace, but without sacrificing detail or character development. When listening it is easy to forget that this is not a Conan Doyle story, which is not the case with the books by any other Holmes imitators or pastiche writers that I have encountered to date, so that is a compliment to the writing and the feel and style of the book. Derk Jacobi’s narration is quite simply, superb. A pleasure to listen to this accomplished thespian playing all the roles in the story with his inimitable flair. A great listen, highly recommended.

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Loved it

True to Holmes and Watson in the best way. Loved absolutely every second of it.

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Awful story; awful performance

A more annoying voice would be hard to find. it turned a very mediocre story into an execrable one. The subtle racism and classism did not add worth to the story and was just an unnecessary swipe at those who were not of the English gentlefolk class.

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A True Holmes Jewel!

I could not stop listening to this precious revival of my favourite sleuth. Almost finished this book in one sitting (a liberal almost, mind you), that was how captivating the writing, the story and the performance is.

10 cheers to Anthony Horowitz for being faithful to Sir Arthur's style and resurrecting Holmes for his fans.

I will certainly be looking up the other series as well.

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Amazing

I'm so pleased with this audiobook. The narrator did a wonderful job even though I had a hard time understanding what he was saying at the beginning. The story is perfect.

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Captures the essence of Sherlock Holmes adventures

Loved the story and the story is set in the same pinnacle of age and mystery , like we remember of his earlier adventures.

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See a movie through the ears!

If you want to listen to Dr Watson telling you his story about Sherlock Holmes last case is this THE audio-book for you! The narrator makes you imagine the old man, sitting at his desk or at the fire in a big leather chair reading from his manuscript. A brilliant performance by Sir Derek Jacobi! If you have seen the movies with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes you know the Victorian London, and you will get a feeling of seeing the story not only hear it.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Dr. Watson Channels His Inner Dickens

The conceit of Anthony Horowitz' The House of Silk (2011) is that twenty-five years after Dr. John Watson helped Sherlock Holmes solve two inter-tangled cases, Watson is writing his account of the adventure because it was too shocking to publish in 1890, involving "A conspiracy that . . . encompassed murder, torture, kidnapping, and the perversion of justice." Now because Holmes has recently died and Watson is missing him (longing to join him), he's decided to write about the adventure, despite it still being so sensational and sensitive that he'll have the manuscript secreted away until 100 years have passed--so it feels like a recently discovered Holmes work by "Watson."

The story begins with Holmes astounding Watson with his powers of ratiocination, observation, and deduction by saying without any preamble: "Influenza is unpleasant. . . but you are right in thinking that, with your wife's help, the child will recover soon." No sooner has Holmes explained the "elementary" way in which he "knew" what's been going on in Watson's life than a long-haired Wimbledon art dealer named Edmund Carstairs pays a call. He tells a dramatic story set in America and involving a Boston Brahmin, four landscapes by John Constable, an anachronistic train robbery, and a shoot out between a gang of Irish immigrant hoodlums and a posse of Pinkerton's agents. Carstairs is convinced that one of the surviving Irish gangsters has tracked him down for revenge. After the gangster apparently robs Carstairs' home and good old persevering but not wholly intelligent Inspector Lestrade gets involved, Holmes summons the Baker Street Irregulars and--"The game's afoot!"

Horowitz clearly enjoys channeling Conan Doyle (and Watson) as he moves the story forward, introducing the mysterious and ominous House of Silk, riffing on familiar Holmes-isms (e.g., "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"), and having Watson allude to former "real" cases (e.g., The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Greek Interpreter, The Red-Haired League, etc.) and indulge in suspenseful foreshadowing (e.g., "He had entered a veritable miasma of evil, and harm, in the worst possible way, was to come to us all too soon").

One of the most enjoyable parts of the novel is the deep and abiding friendship between Holmes and Watson. Watson reveals how much Holmes liked him ("Dear old Watson. How good it is to have you at my side") and how much he liked Holmes ("I have to say that I took immense satisfaction in these moments of quiet sociability and felt myself to be one of the luckiest men in London to have shared in the conversation which I have just described and to be walking in such a leisurely manner at the side of so great a personage as Sherlock Holmes"). He expresses their relationship as affectionate and complementary: "Now that I come to think of it, I was as assiduous in my duties as his biographer as he was in the pursuit of his various investigations. Perhaps that was why the two of us got on so well."

Horowitz writes vivid, witty descriptions, like "Lestrade had the sunken eyes and the general demenour of a rat who has been obliged to dress up for lunch at the Savoy," and "What a place of broken promises and lost hopes the pawn broker proved to be. Every class, every profession, every walk of life was represented in its grubby windows, the detritus of so many lives pinned like butterflies behind the glass."

He also somewhat updates Conan Doyle. A minor example concerns Mrs. Hudson, in a passage that serves as a mild rebuke of Conan Doyle for never having done much with her, so that Watson confesses that he doesn't know how she came to run her house, what happened to her husband, and so on: "I wish I had conversed with her a little more often and taken her for granted a little less." The most important example is the exploitation of street kids, from which not even Holmes is innocent, and gives the novel thematic depth. Watson has a Dickensian social conscience. He is concerned by and ashamed of the plight of London street children ("Childhood is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child"), feels uncomfortable amid the "wealth and privilege" of a British Lord's baronial hall, and notes that most of the cases solved by Holmes concerned the well-to-do.

There are some less impressive parts of the novel that may be flaws for some readers.

**My kvetches contain enigmatic, mild spoilers, so if you haven't read the book, you should maybe skip the next paragraph.**

First, I doubt Moriarty is necessary to this book, and suspect Horowitz of introducing him only to prepare the way a sequel. Second, there is an excrescent and absurd carriage chase scene in the climax that is unworthy of Conan Doyle. Third, I was able to guess the identity of Keelan O'Donaghue too early.

Derek Jacobi is a great actor and a stellar reader of audiobooks. Here he is just right. Without changing his voice drastically for male or female or young or old people (though he dons cockney, Irish, or American accents for a few characters), he reads everything with spot on emotion, understanding, pace, and emphasis, and engagingly brings the book to life.

Feeling that the original Holmes stories are mostly fine and sufficient, I have only read a few of the many pastiche Holmes novels, but I did find The House of Silk to most consistently channel Watson's voice and Conan Doyle's vision. Lyndsay Faye's Dust and Shadow (2009), for instance, which intriguingly pits Holmes and Watson against Jack the Ripper, loses hold of Watson's voice ("me and Holmes") and Holmes' persona (he breaks a man's nose in a fit of pique) and lets me figure out the occupation of the killer before Watson and Holmes do. Horowitz' novel really seems to add to the Conan Doyle canon. Fans of Sherlock Holmes and of Sherlock Holmes pastiches would probably like The House of Silk a lot.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

The reviews are right: This is Holmes Heaven!

Hats off to an excellent narrator, the story itself is wonderfully constructed, I would completely have believed that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself had penned this one. Fantastic!

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Thoroughly enjoyable in all respects.

Jacobi's reading and the twists and turns of Horowitz's plot make an entertaining and absorbing audiobook in true Holmes style.

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