Dr. Watson records in his journal for February 10th, 1890, the strange and sudden disappearance of his friend and companion Sherlock Holmes. The first suspect is, of course, Professor Moriarty. But the professor has no time to prove his innocence. He and his companion, Colonel Sebastian Moran, are busy hunting for The Lady of Lamapoor, a jewel-encrusted idol that has been missing for the past century. Moriarty is unwittingly caught between the forces of good, who believe him responsible for the disappearance of Holmes, and the forces of evil, represented by the cunning Dr. Pin Dok Low, sinister mastermind of the underworld.Read the Reviews
The search for the idol takes Moriarty and Moran to Calcutta, where they book passage on the Steamship Empress of India, which is carrying a cargo of gold bullion back to the vaults of the Bank of England in London. It is the bullion that interests Dr. Pin, but a confrontation between Moriarty and Pin is inevitable.
Who will win -- and how?
Sherlock Holmes vanishes down a London sewer early in Edgar-finalist Kurland's fun fourth novel featuring the sleuth's archenemy, James Moriarty (after 2001's The Great Game). In 1890, a quarter-ton of gold is being shipped from Calcutta to the Bank of England via the eponymous luxury liner, whose passengers include the evil professor, fellow villain Col. Sebastian Moran, and members of the semicomical "Limehouse Coneys," an assortment of urchins and London lowlifes under the direction of inscrutable Dr. Pin Dok Low. Escorting this treasure are 30 crack Highland Lancers commanded by Brig. Gen. Sir Edward St. Yves, who's traveling with his comely and seductive daughter, Margaret. Chaos bordering on slapstick ensues as Moriarty and Moran try to abscond with the bejeweled statuette "Queen of Lamapoor," which is also hidden aboard the luckless liner. Lots of Indian lore adds colorful background to this "seemingly impossible crime," before its satisfying, if not startling, resolution. (Feb.)
--Publisher's Weekly
EMPRESS OF INDIA
Author: Kurland, MichaelThe diabolical (and misunderstood) criminal genius turns sleuth to clear his name, perhaps finding the missing Sherlock Holmes in the process.
In a prologue, Dr. Watson narrates the unfortunate tale of his companion's disappearance. Holmes has been retained by the Bank of England to protect a shipment of gold expected soon. Researching the underground tunnels that he deduces will be the robbers' ingress to the bank, Holmes climbs down a manhole ladder on King William Street and vanishes, at which point the story shifts to the third person and Calcutta, where the Empress of India, the cargo ship carrying both the gold and Margaret St. Yves, the lovely daughter of starchy Brigadier General Edward, is about to set sail. Back in London, Holmes's hefty brother Mycroft implicates arch-rival Moriarty, who calmly professes his innocence but privately frets over his damaged reputation. He joins the passengers of the Empress, whose list rivals that of Agatha Christie's Orient Express in eccentricity and shadiness. Foremost in the latter category are the creepy Artful Codger and Pin, who lie in wait for the antihero. There'll be much eyebrow raising and Victorian drollery before the satisfactory solution.
The fourth Moriarty novel by the prolific Kurland (The Great Game, 2001, etc.) carries forward the never-ending franchise with authentic flavor.
-- Kirkus Reviews
In this deliciously complex and abundantly rewarding novel from the author of The Infernal Device (a novella collection featuring Moriarty), Europe in the 1890s is on the brink of political cataclysm. Well before the Nazis, an Aryan brotherhood is bent on toppling Europe's major governments. Meanwhile, on the Continent, a loose group of young English aristocrats uses the privileges of class to gain entry to royal courts and the uppermost echelons of power. Without official imprimatur, they begin "the Great Game," a nascent counter-intelligence movement. Disconnected information prompts Professor James Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes, separately, to depart England and hasten to Vienna. That such material entertains for page after page is a tribute to Kurland's remarkable talent. Multiple plots leapfrog across chapters in a perfect pace. Surprises abound. The characters – whether European nobles, Americans abroad, anarchists plotting the new world order, or a scene-stealing dwarf – are richly and convincingly portrayed. Dialogue sparkles with wit, erudition and unerring diction. The dwarf's cockney slang holds especial delights. This is no ordinary Holmes pastiche. Indeed, the Great Detective has little more than a cameo. Fans already acquainted with the author's brilliantly reconceived Moriarty, who is as much in advance over Conan Doyle's "Napoleon of Crime" as Shakespeare's Hamlet is over the historical Danish prince, likely pre-ordered this first full-length novel in the series as soon as they caught wind of it. Uncommon are the pleasures such writing affords.Sherlockian Spin-Off
-– Publisher's Weekly, July 30 2001
Kurland, whose ... previous Professor Moriarty novels have been acclaimed for their historical accuracy and adept plotting, returns with The Great Game, which is every bit as successful as its predecessors at bringing fin de siècle Europe to brilliant life and presenting the reader with a wild alternative – that Moriarty may actually be a force for good. The action starts at 221-Baker street, with an encounter between Holmes and Moriarty designed to bring Holmes into a case that involves both the British and the Austro-Hungarian Empires. But the center of the action remains 64 Russell Square, Moriarty's book-lined lair. The professor, helped by Holmes, works feverishly to circumvent assassination plots on Queen Victoria and Emperor Franz Josef. With the pair moving from European capital to capital, the action veers and twists like that in a contemporary spy thriller.
– Connie Fletcher, Booklist, July 2001
A brilliant pair
entertaining historical fiction mystery“I have heard you referred to as ‘the Napoleon of Crime,’” the duke interrupted.
“Yes,” Moriarty replied dryly. “I myself have heard that. From the Javert of busybodies.”Sherlock Holmes is immortal. No other character has been so ceaselessly analyzed, dramatized, parodied, and – especially in recent years – ingeniously re-presented: to instruct and partner young Mary Russell in Laurie King's mysteries; to play second violin to his elder brother Mycroft and Irene Adler in series by Quinn Fawcett and Carole Nelson Douglas; to bumble, albeit eruditely, after a more efficient Inspector Lestrade in M.J. Trow’s ribald tales. But in the beginning was Holmes, and none of these series or their many counterparts could exist if he had not been created.
Michael Kurland's protagonist is Professor James Moriarty, and his ingenious strategy is not based on marginalizing or mocking Holmes, but on enlarging the scope of his nemesis. Moriarty is not simply the most dangerous man in London, as Holmes has asserted: he is the most dangerous man in Europe. As the story opens, Holmes, in a cocaine-induced paranoia, has been searching up the chimney and under furniture for a hidden Moriarty when the professor arrives at Baker Street, respectably sending in his card with Mrs. Hudson. The Kipling ballad used as an epigraph – there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth! – sets the tone. The two strong men – Moriarty the rational criminal mastermind, and Holmes the investigative genius – will employ their complementary talents to outwit a madman bent on creating worldwide war through the assassination of heads of state.
And ah, the scope that this scheme for a story provides! Vienna! Palaces and prisons, garrets and elegant railroad cars. Royalty incognito, beautiful women, debonair men, criminals, spies (from every side), anarchists, petty criminals, dupes, magicians! Kurland himself is a magical mastermind, flawlessly recreating a bygone world, adeptly linking his primary and secondary protagonists, generously offering escape into a brilliant and terrifying time, and, wisely, ending with a warning.
“We have cut off one tentacle of the beast,” the duke said, “but the creature still lives, and it will grow another and another – it will not be stilled until governments cease trying to establish their legitimacy by stirring up ancient hatreds and false rivalries, and join in a commonwealth of nations.”
“‘Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd in the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world’” recited Cecily.
Moriarty nodded. “Tennyson.”
“That will not happen in our lifetimes,” Benjamin said.
“Nor our sons’, nor their sons’,” said the duke, “but it must happen if we are to survive without blasting ourselves back to savagery or oblivion. For the weapons are getting more powerful and the wars are getting more absolute.”
“Tennyson goes on: ‘Yet I doubt not thro’ the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.’”
“It’s always good to end on a hopeful note,” the duke said.
– Jeanne M. Jacobson, The Drood Review of Mystery 9/14/2001
The ingenious Professor Moriarty admits to having performed some illegal deeds, but nothing even remotely close to the claims of the drug addicted Holmes. If any of it was true, Moriarty knows that the international intelligentsia would not enter in scientific debate with him. To Moriarty, the cocaine has turned Holmes's deductive logic into paranoia perhaps because the professor is the only person in England who is Holmes's intellectual superior.
Karl Strassenkopp visits Moriarty to warn him that his agent in Vienna is in danger, but someone kills Karl with a crossbow bolt. Unable to ignore the homicide and the warning the victim passed to his servant, Moriarty begins an investigation that is not concerned about legalities in order to learn the truth. With Holmes on his tail, Moriarty starts to uncover a clever and devious plot to cause World War I to break out in 1891 Europe unless he can find a way to checkmate his wise yet unknown opponent while keeping Holmes at bay.
The third Moriarty mystery is an entertaining historical fiction mystery that brings world events of the last decade of the nineteenth century to the front stage. The story line is fun though at times light as Moriarty comes across as a brilliant mathematician with intellectual tastes rather than the mastermind criminal. Purists may object to the depiction of Holmes as a foot behind his arch enemy, but most readers will enjoy Michael Kurland’s novel and probably will purchase the previous Moriarty tales (The Infernal Device and Others) being re-released in August.
-- Harriet Klausner, BookBrowser
One More Chance To read the first chapter -- Click Here
A refreshingly entertaining novel... Kurland... has produced a neatly crafted adventure of Professor Moriarty, the world's first consulting criminal... There are apparently more Moriarty novels in the offing from Mr. Kurland, and for a change we can look forward to them.
-- Baker Street Miscellanea
Kurland's story is ingenious and as compelling as that put down by A. Conan Doyle.
-- West Coast Review of Books
I very much enjoyed Michael Kurland's The Infernal Device... The plot is the book's best feature, but it is only one of the many good things about it. The action sequences are craftily written and the quality of characterization is well above average.
-- Covert Notes
Trepoff naevnes flygtigt i SCAN. Her er han gjort til russisk Superskurk, der bekaemper Anarkisterne med alle Midler og endogsaa, i slutningen af 1880' erne, vil spraenge Dronning Victoria i Luften, da hun befinder sig om Bord paa "Victoria and Albert", med Torpedoen fra en Garrett-Harris Undervandsbaad.Death By Gaslight
-- Sherlockiana [Danmark]
In a world that sometimes seems overrun by pastiches, it is indeed pleasant to find an author with a new idea that is presented with some ingenuity.
-- Baker Street Journal
For readers who like Sherlock Holmes, and for those who like Victorian mystery thrillers, Death By Gaslight is a fine bouillabaisse to be savored bit by bit.
-- The Armchair Detective
Kurland writes in a style that can only win praise from the Baker Street Irregulars, employing characters and situations set in what he calls the Conan Doyle 'fantasy' world 'which centers on London at the end of Queen Victoria's reign, the world of hansom cabs and gas lamps, coal scuttles and gasogenes, clever disguises, secret societies, and a pea-soup fog that surrounds, envelops, and turns every passing footstep into a mystery...' From whatever celestial outpost he now occupies, Conan Doyle must be beaming his approval.
-- West Coast Review of Books
An excellent mystery and a very good pastiche. I could not put the book down.
-- Andrew Jay Peck, The Commonplace Book
Kurland's maiden foray into Holmes' world received an Edgar nomination, and surely "Gaslight" will go all the way.
-- Los Angeles Times
Kurland's novels are a fascinating new look into the world of Sherlock Holmes.
-- The Duncan (Oklahoma) Banner