Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Ubervilles by Kim Newman - A book "written" by bad guys for bad guys!

 

Writing as Col. Moran Newman has tunneled his inner killer and set out to write the story of Moriarty through the eyes of his right-hand man. Personally, I found this to be one of the more interesting retellings of Doyle's characters. 

Written very much in the same manner the original Sherlock tales are Col. Sebastion Moran takes us through his meeting Moriarty and becoming his personal assassin till the very end with Moriarty's fateful meeting with Sherlock in Switzerland by detailing a series of Moriarty's most puzzling and in the case of The Red Planet League most hilariously petty crimes. 

What I found to be the most interesting with this book is that at no point does Moran come across as anything other than what he actually is; a racist, homophobic, murdering bastard of a human. So often when an author tells the bad guys side of things they'll try to elicit some emotional response; if he had just had better parents, grew up in an abusive household, etc. Basically, it's not entirely the bad guy's fault they are a bad guy. Newman, however, doesn't take that route while he does give both Moriarty and Moran a kind of criminal moral code they are still just as evil at the end of the book as they were at the beginning. 

I also really enjoyed that Sherlock doesn't play any larger role in Moriarty's life than he did in Doyle's original books. Pop culture especially the latest BBC Sherlock (which is one of my favorite versions of Sherlock don't get me wrong) plays up a relationship between the two characters that didn't exist in the original books. I found it nice that this book wasn't a lot of fist-shaking with Moriarity saying "I'll get you, Sherlock!' Okay, Moriarty would never say something so plebeian but you get it. 

I should really rewatch this. 

And as with Anno Dracula Newman pulls in larger-than-life characters from across the Victorian world having their lives crash into Moran's and Moriarty's often with explosive results. 

Moral of the story: You'll find no morals in this book. Moran is a hateful murdering gun and Moriarty has his finger on the trigger. A really fun read that fits the phrase "guilty pleasure" to a T.