Upon escaping from Reichenbach Falls, his empire in ruins, criminal mastermind James Moriarty takes the identity of wealthy inventor Hugo Strahm and embarks on a dark pilgrimage to the cliffside manor of Schloss Alber in Bavaria.
When medical student Clara Mendel returns to Schloss Alber, she finds her childhood home on the verge of ruin. A deadly feud over a priceless heirloom has thrown the Alber family into chaos while its walls play host to an unusual cast of characters – the obstinate Lord Alber, his strange and beleaguered children, their cantankerous butler, and of course, their mysterious new guest, "Hugo Strahm." When one of them is poisoned at dinner, it’s the first act in a spiraling criminal conspiracy, in which any and all of them are suspects.
Working with the sharp and inquisitive Clara, the former crime lord attempts to solve the mystery whilst trying to keep his true identity concealed. Yet despite taking on the role of detective, Moriarty does not share Sherlock Holmes’s methods, nor his interest in justice. Only one thing is certain, for James Moriarty, dying at the hands of Sherlock Holmes would have been an elegant end… The question of what comes next is far more complicated.
This cleverly plotted mystery is a faithful and inventive take on the Sherlock Holmes legacy, paying homage to Arthur Conan Doyle’s signature style while adding its own devious tricks to the story that is destined to become a must-read classic for Sherlock Holmes fans.
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As a huge fan of Conan Doyle's Holmes and Moriarty, I was eager to read this new mystery featuring Moriarty himself. And for the first part, I was intrigued and engaged as a series of journal entries and letters reveal that Moriarty did indeed survive after Reichenbach Falls in 1891 - these narratives explain this quite well, with each new narrator picking up where the previous one left off.
It is not until we meet our final main narrator in Clara Mendel and we reach our destination of Schloss Alber, that for me, events stagnate - characters become passe and even Moriarty himself is a bit wishy-washy. The actual mystery, was rather formulaic - just set in a different geographical location and timeline.
Whilst the use of a number of difference narratives does - at first - maintain a certain continuity, they actually begin to distract and detract from the mystery itself, bogging down the narrative to the point that I found myself wondering if the author was ever going to get to the point.
I was not a fan of this rendition of Moriarty, which was most likely one of the main reasons that this story just did not resonate - I would hardly describe it as a homage to Conan Doyle's own style nor being faithful to the Holmes legacy. One for the Holmes corpus ... I think not.
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