Author of the week: Anthony Horowitz

last updated 8 January 2015

Sherlock Holmes is back, said Marjorie Kehe in The Christian Science Monitor. Everywhere we turn, it seems, there’s Holmes in his deerstalker hat, pipe in hand. A sequel to the 2009 Holmes film starring Robert Downey Jr. is set for release later this year. The BBC just completed a widely acclaimed Holmes miniseries. Author Graham Moore’s latest novel, The Sherlockian, imagines Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle partnering with Bram Stoker in an amateur-detective duo. So it almost makes sense that the Conan Doyle estate has chosen to “officially resurrect the iconic Victorian detective” with the authorization of a new full-length novel, the first since Conan Doyle’s own The Valley of Fear, from 1915. Anthony Horowitz, best known for his popular Alex Rider children’s series, even “stands a chance of getting it right.”

Horowitz at least promises to attempt authenticity, said Nick Collins in the London Telegraph. “My Holmes is going to be exactly the Holmes of the novels, without any new information on my part,” he told the BBC last week. “I don’t want to take any liberties with this great iconic figure.” Horowitz confesses he was initially wary about accepting the project, not only because of the size of the shoes he has to fill, but also because he says such reinventions often “smack of desperation.” But he says he couldn’t resist the opportunity to resurrect a boyhood hero, so 221b Baker Street will soon be occupied once again. We’ll see what kind of Holmes will live there.