Moriarty was published by Orion Books in 2014. Set immediately after the events at Reichenbach Falls (Holmes and Moriarty’s supposed mutual destruction), the novel follows Frederick Chase, a Pinkerton detective, and Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard as they investigate a mysterious American criminal mastermind named Clarence Devereux who is moving to fill the power vacuum left by Moriarty’s death.
The novel’s final twist — which recontextualizes everything the reader has experienced — is one of the most audacious in contemporary crime fiction. Horowitz uses the reader’s assumptions about the Holmes universe against them with surgical precision.
Collecting Moriarty
First edition (Orion Books, London, 2014): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- Fine in dust jacket: $20–$40
- Very good: $10–$20
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
The Anti-Holmes Novel
Moriarty is deliberately structured as the inverse of a Sherlock Holmes story. Where Holmes solves mysteries through observation and deduction, Chase and Jones stumble through their investigation through dogged legwork and imperfect reasoning. The absence of Holmes is the novel’s central anxiety — and the twist ending reveals why. Horowitz has called it his most technically difficult novel to write because the clues must work on two entirely different levels.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read The House of Silk before Moriarty? No. While both are authorized Holmes novels by Horowitz, they are completely independent stories with no shared characters (beyond Holmes and Watson, who appear only peripherally in Moriarty). Moriarty stands alone and benefits from being read without foreknowledge of its twist.