Hey there. I read "House of Silk" a week or two ago and quite liked it. The writing was excellent and it seemed to do a good job of getting the *feel* of Holmes right while upgrading it a bit to fit in with more recent literature.
I enjoyed the book.But one thing sort of bugged me, and that was Moriarty. I might have missed something, I admit that, but if so I was hoping someone could tell me.
...What was the point of the scene with Moriarty and Watson?Or I guess I should say what was the point of it within the context of the story? I understand that there was a desire to have a cameo from Moriarty, and I'm all for that. But that seems to be about all it amounted to.
Moriarty gave Watson a key to the cell and some information. The key was never used and Holmes didn't seem to have a vital need for any of the information. Now that would be fine if that stuff had come from anyone
but Moriarty -- because if there is anyone who should know what Holmes is capable of doing it's him. He should have known/expected that Holmes would be able to make his own escape, or barring that he'd have known that getting the key to Holmes likely wasn't going to do much good (according to Watson's observations anyway). Holmes also didn't need any of the information, which is again something that Moriarty might have expected.
I read the rest of the book after that expecting for that key to come into play somewhere. When they went to the freak show I thought "ah ha! It wasn't a key to the cell, it was a key for something here!" and then I thought again that it might be a key to something in the House of Silk... but in the end it really was a key to the cell that ended up being useless... wasn't it? That just doesn't seem like a fitting contribution from Moriarty.
So did I miss something? Or would the plotlines have been almost the exact same had Moriarty been cut from the book? Seems like all he did was make a cameo. The warning of white silk at the beginning could also have been cut, even though I liked it, as it didn't seem to tell Holmes much of anything (except to make him realize in hindsight that he should have paid attention to it).
So yeah -- an awesome story. I liked it a lot and I intend to look up some other books by the author (this was the first novel by Horowitz that I'd read, and I was impressed). But this was just bugging me a bit and I hoped someone might point out something I missed.
Or not, but whatever works.
Cheers folks!
