New Sherlock Holmes novel by Anthony Horowitz out in November
Baku, April 13 (AZERTAC). The answer, Watson, is elementary. The reason Sherlock Holmes` latest adventure, The House of Silk, is only being published 81 years after the death of his creator Arthur Conan Doyle, and 106 years after his final story about the tenant of 221B Baker Street, is that the story was simply too shocking to reveal until now, Guardian reports.
The news in January that Anthony Horowitz - better known as a children`s author - had been commissioned to write a new Sherlock Holmes novel, was itself a literary sensation. The book, his publishers promise, is "stunning", and the title has just been revealed for the first time.
The book is set in 1890, but as written by Watson in a retirement home, a year after the death of Holmes. The story opens with a train robbery in Boston, and moves to the innocuous setting of Wimbledon - but, Holmes says, the tale was too monstrous, too appalling to reveal until now. "It is no exaggeration to say it could tear apart the very fabric of society", he writes in the prologue.
Horowitz is on a book tour in the US, but announced the title in a filmed interview, shown at a reception at the London Book Fair. The book is finished, and in a safe at his publishers, Orion. Jon Wood of Orion has read it - in one sitting - and obviously refused to reveal who dunnit, or any further hints about the plot.
The 85,000-word book will be published in hardback on November 1, in a "very large" edition "I think it is going to be an absolute publishing sensation," Wood said. "It has all the quality of the original, but with a much more modern pace and sensibility."
Horowitz said he had added very little to Holmes, having loved him since he first read the stories at the age of 16. The corpses he left across his scripts for television series such as Midsomer Murders and Foyle`s War owed a lot to his early infatuation with the great consulting detective.
"I have tried to be very, very careful. I really do admire these stories, and I would not want to take any liberties."
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