The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz, an "official" Sherlock Holmes novel, published 2011
the cover for the audiobook version of The House of Silk, narrated by Derek Jacobi. i like this cover, pretty enticing i gotta say.
anytime there's a person that has a considerable creative library of works, their family and descendants often take over the copyright ownership of their work until it enters the public domain, which is typically 70 years after the creator's death. you can see this happen with musicians, authors, artists etc. i mentioned in my review of The Red Demon that the Conan Doyle Estate tried to sue the Enola Holmes movie over it's writing of Holmes's character that a compassionate Holmes violated the existing copyright on his character. it was summarily dismissed.
well a couple of years before that the Conan Doyle estate authorized "The House of Silk" as the first new "official Sherlock Holmes novel"... whatever that means. it seems to feel more like a marketing effect, intended to promote the book as something that could be accepted into the "canon" but so far it's a pretty superficial title. a new author cannot technically add to an existing canon in this regard, but it would feel really nice to know that the people that are in control of the copyright of the character you wrote about believe it's so good it could sit alongside the original canon.
so the content warnings for this book contain massive spoilers, more so than they have been in the past. i believe it's fully important to know that this is a massive hinge point of the story and i will have to discuss it, i will have untangle what this means for the story, and i will try to address it with the tact it deserves.
ok if you're reading this now, i'm guessing you read the content warnings and are ok with continuing with the rest of my review. there's no easy way to talk about those topics, especially in the context that they are presented. thankfully, the majority of those elements are kept to be revealed toward the end, but nonetheless, everything happening in the book paints a grim picture in hindsight.
photo of the reviewer's book from bookwritten.com. i keep finding photos of people taking pictures of their copies like this. is this a normal book review thing?
the summary
the book begins in typical pastiche fashion, a note from Watson stating that this was written around the time it occurred but the publication had to be withheld until a certain time, due to the players that are involved and how it could've altered society if these facts came to light. nicely sets up the intrigue for the book.
the narrative starts amidst another case, in which an art dealer believes that a man has followed him from America and has connections to an Irish gang. Holmes employs the use of the Baker Street Irregulars, his band of street urchins, to collect information for him and track down the whereabouts of this "man in a flat cap" that is terrorizing this art dealer. his home is burgled and Holmes meets the art dealer's wife and sister as they contribute information about what could've happened.
There's a new member of the Irregulars, a boy named Ross, who's been being "trained" by other members to be able to survive on the streets and be able to help Holmes when he comes calling. Ross keeps watch on the hotel where this gang member might be staying and disappears after a murder takes place in that very hotel in connection to the aforementioned case. Holmes takes it upon himself to locate Ross, and discovers he was living at an orphanage up until recently. upon visiting it, they discover he has a sister working at a pub in London named Sally.
when Holmes and Watson come to question Sally about his whereabouts, she thinks that they're thugs from "The House of Silk" intending to take Ross back or... "take care of him". she attempts to flee the scene before Holmes and Watson can try to explain that they intend to only help him, however they never gain Sally's trust in the matter.
Ross is found but is found brutally murdered. Holmes determines that that the people that perpetrated the crime were members, or rather enforcers, of "The House of Silk". Holmes feels in part responsible for the murder of Ross and resolves to solve it.
thus begins a trend that follows Holmes and Watson everywhere they go: either people don't know anything about the "House of Silk" or they do, but refuse to talk about it even at the threat of arrest or their own life. Holmes receives warnings that he should drop the case if he values his safety and the safety of his loved ones. this just spurs Holmes on further, if people want to bury something, he's always there with a shovel to uncover it. even Holmes' brother Mycroft appears at a point to tell Holmes to drop the matter.
things turn for the worse though when Holmes is arrested for a murder he obviously didn't commit. he believes it to be the work of HoS members pulling the strings to stop him. this puts even more evidence indirectly into his hands that the HoS has considerable power, even that over the police.
while Holmes is indisposed Watson takes up the reigns of the case. Watson is contacted by a party that says he can help him, which turns out to be Moriarty! in the original canon Watson never met or even saw Moriarty, so Watson has no clue who he's talking to in this scene, other than understanding he's a man of massive intellect that has an antagonistic respect for Holmes in some way. Moriarty says that he wants the House of Silk dealt with too, finding their activities vile, and even provides Watson with the physical keys to break Holmes out of jail.
(it is of my own opinion that at this point, i think the reader should start having an inkling of a clue of what the "House of Silk" is. i was starting to get tipped off after the sister's reaction very early in the book, but the Moriarty scene more or less confirmed it for me.)
so Watson goes to break Holmes out of jail before HoS members try to assassinate him there. turns out Holmes already broke himself out of jail because people in a jail, both criminals and police alike, owe him some favors.
the pair follow their leads to a traveling circus where Holmes believes one of the members of the HoS is. they look for anyone suspicious and actually see the man they've been looking for in the art dealer's case there. following him leads them into an ambush by both the Irish gang and the HoS, but Lestrade manages to arrive at the right time to save them. i forget the specifics of this scene and no other synopsis online is providing me with any more information about it.
through the conversation before the ambush, Holmes realize then where the House of Silk actually is. the group return to the orphanage they visited earlier in the case. there, they pose as "clients" at a building that's placed on the property. they are led inside under false pretenses while Lestrade gets back up.
while there, Holmes and Watson catch in the act multiple high ranking men in British society that have rented out boys from the orphanage to torture, assault, and rape.
people are arrested, obviously including that of the pastor and wife who run the orphanage. the House of Silk as is is obviously disbanded, but the pastor says that he will do the same thing again in a different country under a different name where Holmes can't touch him. nothing ever comes to trial for House of Silk members because they were members of the British government and even implied to be members of the royal family.
the art dealer's case is also wrapped up at the end where it comes out that the art dealer's wife is actually the leader of the Irish gang. go figure.
ok now let's take a breath and think about things
right so. how do we begin to unpack all of that.
i can start my analysis with the fact that this book is quite well written. a pastiche is only ever as good as how close it can emulate character voice and behaviors and i think Horowitz does that extremely well. the way his writing flows feels unique to him still but conveys the feeling and tone of ACD. by that measure, i did enjoy this book.
by the measure of the actual content within, i don't know if i can say that i like this book nor would i recommend it.
i will preempt anything i say further with this qualifier: i have never been a victim of the type of abuse outlined in this book, so if i speak out of line please inform me and i will rectify the language and the way that i discuss these matters.
i think this book fucking sucks for including sexual abuse as the reason for the plot to exist. it is by no means gratuitous as it is presented in the text and leaves a lot more to the reader's imagination when it is actually discussed, but to have an entire novel that leads up to this as it's conclusion infuriates the hell out of me.
if the book had instead created the circumstance where the boys in the orphanage were instead being put into a sweatshop situation, where their lives were at threat via the work they were being forced to do, that would still be a historically accurate possibility and eliminate the sexual abuse element from existing. sure there would need to be plot adjustments for how obtuse literally everyone Holmes talks to the case with in terms of the need for secrecy, but it would be achievable and probably would be a more interesting book for it.
i can't recall a moment in the book where Holmes nor Watson realized what happened to Ross at the House of Silk. even though i didn't suspect that the orphanage we visited earlier in the book was the location at which the abuse was perpetrated, as i mentioned in the middle of my summary, i had a pretty good idea that abuse and even more likely sexual abuse was the cause of the reactions everyone was having. Holmes never vocalized this possibility, maybe he didn't want to consider it as much as i did, but more likely the way it's portrayed in the text he had no idea that this was even a possibility.
i think that media should be allowed to address problematic aspects of culture and discuss it within the realms of it's narrative. individuals need to deem for themselves whether the content that deals with difficult subject matter is presenting it critically and objectively or just adding fuel to the fire of perpetuating the abuse that it intended to criticize. shying away from content that is uncomfortable creates a type of mindset in which anything that could be troubling is deemed "problematic" and engaging with it or supporting it makes you as evil as the subject itself.
this being said, the House of Silk presents the abuse of minors and the actions of the pastor that perpetuated them as evil, but it takes an entirely defeatist stance on the matter. not every mystery or story needs to end in triumph, there's a plethora of stories in the original canon where Holmes makes a mistake and rightfully admits defeat. the ending of this story is a defeat on a magnitude that just feels bitter. of course no retribution happened, of course no justice was served, there's people in power that have prevented these things from being revealed for years and they know that they can keep perpetuating their abuse forever until they die because they're too untouchable. there's no closure to this story. the cycle of abuse continues. not even "The Great Sherlock Holmes" can stop this from happening or effecting any change. it's defeatist. it's ugly. it's true. and it fucking sucks.
i can't be the only one that grew up in the 2000s experiencing church and being inundated with the news from all sides about sexual abuse within the clergy. i feel like by the early 2010s i was old enough to have the cognitive functions to process what all of these news stories meant. in all honesty, this did have a part in me making a more considered effort of moving away from organized religion when my parents recognized my autonomy in making that decision. i feel like the volume of these stories only expanded due to the nature of mass accessible media starting from the early 2000s due to the internet, but as that infamous report from NPR in 2018 reveals, sexual abuse allegations against the clergy have been happening for decades and have often been covered up by the leaders of the church and members of power involved in the government. the parallels are not lost upon me.
maybe it would've hurt less 11 years ago when this book first released. or maybe i wouldn't have been able to stomach it at all if i experienced any similar kind of abuse. the nature of which this "twist" is revealed at the end of the book is callous at best and thoughtless at worst of using something that is still perpetuated today as the shocking reveal. i knew what i was probably walking into before the final chapters of the book and it still hurt in a way that it really really didn't have to. it leaves a terrible stain on an otherwise well written book, attempting to leave an impression via dark shock value rather than the merit of a mystery solved and case closed.
which brings me back to what i was talking about at the beginning of this post: the Conan Doyle estate authorized this book as being accepted into the canon of Sherlock Holmes. someone read this book, "accepted" this book into the canon, and heartily advertised this book, knowing that that was the ending. maybe it speaks to the change in our tolerance for violence and abuse in the 21st century versus the late 19th and early 20th, but in my opinion, this is not a story that would've been published by ACD in his era. ACD wrote about the crimes and troubles of the late Victorian but he would've never touched subjects that were gratuitously heinous like this. he wrote stories for people of all ages, interested in mystery and crime. this book is deftly for adults only and those that do not have any triggers regarding abuse or assault. in any stories remotely similar to this level of severity (which i will say, there aren't none, murder and blackmail is usually the worst people get), the perpetrators of crimes got their just desserts in the end in some shape or form. no one in House of Silk is ever punished for their crimes.
and so after all of that, where does that leave us?
truth is, i don't know where this leaves us
after all of that, the book House of Silk still exists, i still hate it, and it still is the first in a line of books authorized by the Conan Doyle estate. the full list of those books can be seen on the Conan Doyle estate's website. so far only two other authors besides Horowitz have produced authorized books. Horowitz himself went on to write another book authorized by the estate simply titled "Moriarty" and published in 2014.
reading other reviews about this book again seems puts me in the minority. reviews from larger publications such as The Washington Post, and The Guardian point to this book as being very well written, very faithful to the characterizations of Holmes and Watson, and a well constructed mystery. reviews from Goodreads trend to point that way as well.
but there are a lot of people like me that find that this book pushes a darker tone a little too gratuitously, where the content warnings are necessary to prevent triggering its readers unnecessarily, and the resolution being the most critical aspect of the novel.
a review from Goodreads user Terry states:
[...] Rather than trying to surpass the cleverness of Doyle's plots, Horowitz plays up the emotional side of the case. Except that it doesn't quite work. The plot takes a turn for the lurid in a way that is meant to engage the reader's sympathy; instead, however, it left me feeling emotionally manipulated. Without a truly clever payoff, the plot's sensationalism feels gratuitous, and I left the novel wanting to reread the originals.
a review from Storygraph user elzmri states:
Horowitz portrays Holmes and Watson brilliantly, and I really like his writing style. However the content of the crimes that they were investigating, which were revealed towards the end, was really difficult to read and I wish I had seen the content trigger warnings beforehand. As a review on the front cover notes, Horowitz certainly does explore the “capital’s dark underbelly [more] than Conan Doyle ever did”, but I found this to be a bit too triggering and shocking for me and I was close to having to put the book down, but I tried and managed to read it to the end. Nevertheless, I hope for Horowitz to write more Holmes pastiches in the future.
a review from Storygraph user eairwin echoes everything i have stated earlier in this essay in two very short sentences:
I like Anthony Horowitz and he does a good job capturing the voice of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The final reveal, however, was so dark that my enjoyment of the book plummeted and tainted my entire experience.
to not include the content warnings of the book despite their nature of being a spoiler is doing a massive disservice and almost downright deceitful to anyone that wants to read a book that's being lauded as "a new addition" to the Sherlock Holmes canon.
compared to my feelings about Sherlock Holmes and The Red Demon, i had respect for that story for attempting to do something different with it's style of pastiche. i didn't enjoy the story but i value it as a creative work contributing to the discussion of how to interpret the characters of Holmes and Watson in the modern day. i don't enjoy The House of Silk nor do i respect it as a creative work for relying on shocking content in order to drive it's mystery. i don't even know if i want to read the other book penned by Horowitz in the Holmesian canon if this is what he did with it the first time.
my personal review on Storygraph when i finished the book was 3/5. i don't know if it deserves that rating anymore, especially now that i've had time to digest and consider its contents. i don't know what rating i would give it otherwise, but my flat review of this book is that i do not recommend it. read literally anything else.
if you want a bit of levity after all of this, as i was browsing the Conan Doyle Estate website i found that they licensed ACD's likeness and name to a series of Montblanc writing pens. for some reason. there are 8 pens in this collection, the cheapest of the pens starting at ÂŁ 735.
the pen pictured here is ÂŁ 32,000.00 as listed on the Montblanc website. free shipping on all orders over ÂŁ 25 too. what a steal.