The Book
If you imagine the twisted twins of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson you
get James Moriarty and Sebastian “Basher” Moran. This is a collection of short
stories about Moriarty and Moran. Moriarty is a consulting criminal who runs an
organization called the Firm, where people from around the world can come and
ask for help. Moran works as a hit man. Moriarty does all the brain work and
Moran smashes the heads in. There are seven stories and the titles are all puns
of Sherlock Holmes titles, which is fun. People from the Holmes/Watson universe
show up, like Irene Adler. The book chronicles their lives for about 10-20
years, the same as John and Sherlock, it starts when they begin living
together, and it ends with Reichenbach.
Thoughts
I really loved it. I thought it was hilarious. Moran has the role of
Watson in this book, he writes a diary of his life with Moriarty, so we get his
thoughts and ideas and he is a completely awful human being. I love him so
much. He basically hates everyone. Every foreigner, he hates women, he hates
Americans, Natives, especially Belgians, but most of all he hates white men. I
love him. Moran is a fairly well educated man. He went to Eton and then joined
the army, then he was discharged at some point and became a big game hunter. He
then joins the good Professor in his empire of crime. He is rude, he is odious,
he thinks he knows best, he’s a misogynist tool, and he is very well written,
which is just so great. Also, all the chapter starts with him basically going: “this
is what I will write about, and I hate all of it and all the people involved.”
The Professor is creepy, and very Sherlock Holmes-like, but sort of the
evil version. He doesn’t really like the science of deduction, and prefers
doing research and working hard. He is ruthless, but he usually uses Moran for
skull bashing. He can kill though, with pretty much anything. He has this
project with wasps, where he releases them on the population, or more
specifically children, to see how they react, I guess? It’s very creepy.
I liked how Sherlock Holmes was referred to. He is constantly called the
Thin Man, and Moriarty despises him, but also gives him pretty much no credit,
which I liked. I really love Sherlock Holmes by the way, but I fucking loved
that Moriarty hated him so much. Yes, this is a bit odd, but I loved it. I like
Newman’s style and writing. It’s very reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, so that’s
good.
I also liked the prologue. It is about a lady scholar, in 2011, who is
called into a bank called Box Brothers, which features in Moran’s stories as
well. They have found a manuscript, by a certain Sebastian Moran, and the manager
wants to know if it’s authentic. And the scholar relates the stories in the
manuscript. I really liked it, because the book purports to be real, and the
little prologue sort of grounds it in reality, it makes it seem more real, I
guess.
Finally
It was a lot of fun, and I liked it. I now want to read more of Kim
Newman’s Anno Dracula books, which are also great.
I just finished The Hound of the D’Urbervilles by Kim Newman and here
follows the review.