Skip to content

Radio 2 Book Club choice: Moriarty

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz (Orion) will be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club on Monday 3 November.

The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK.

Moriarty

Set days after the events at the Reichenbach Falls, Moriarty follows the investigations of Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase, lately arrived in Europe from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind who has risen to take his place.

Chase forms an alliance with Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard, to track this new evil before it engulfs London. Jones is a devoted student of Holmes’s methods of investigation and deduction. Together Frederick Chase and Athelney Jones forge a path through the darkest corners of the capital to shine light on this shadowy figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, a man determined to overwhelm London in a tide of murder and menace.

Selection panel review

This one was very popular with our selection panel, here’s what they thought:

“A treat for Holmes fans, and anyone who enjoys clever, well written, well plotted stories. It really captures the feel of the original books, while making them feel thoroughly up to date, and treats its readers like intelligent people. Very good.”

“The story starts after the ‘deaths’ of both Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty and follows a series of clues to unmask a cruel and vicious criminal mastermind. There’s a series of twists and turns and nothing is as it seems. A really good read.”

About the author

Anthony Horowitz is one of the UK’s most prolific and successful writers, and may have committed more (fictional) murders than any other living author. His most recent novel, The House of Silk, was a Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller and sold in more than 35 countries around the world. His bestselling Alex Rider series for children has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide. As a TV screenwriter he created both Midsomer Murders and the BAFTA-winning Foyle’s War; other TV work includes Poirot and the widely acclaimed mini-series Collision and Injustice. Anthony has recently joined the board of the Old Vic and regularly contributes to a wide variety of national newspapers and magazines. In January 2014 he was awarded an OBE for his services to literature. Anthony Horowitz lives in London.

A word from Anthony

“It’s fantastic news that Moriarty has been chosen for the Radio 2 Book Club. I’m truly delighted but, until you’ve actually read the book, I can’t explain why. Let me just say that book clubs are a wonderful way for readers to communicate with each other, with the characters in the book and indeed with the author – and it’s that relationship that I explore in my new novel. Oh dear – that all sounds a bit pretentious. Moriarty is first and foremost supposed to be an entertainment and my main hope is that it will surprise and delight you. But when you get to the end, you’ll know what I mean.

The Reading Agency does fantastic work bringing people and books together. Everyone goes on about the value of reading and we all know the pleasure – and the intellectual curiosity – that reading brings. But it’s nice to find an organisation that’s just out there, doing good work without pontificating.

Enjoy Moriarty! Or let me know if you don’t."

Get involved

Tune in to Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on Monday 3 November to hear a live interview with Anthony Horowitz talking about his book.

Win a set of 10 copies of Moriarty for your Reading Group by completing this survey by Wednesday 5 November.

Have you read Moriarty? You can share your thoughts on Twitter, or by posting a comment in the space below.

Want to find out more? The Radio 2 Book Club now has a dedicated Twitter feed, and you can also follow the author @AnthonyHorowitz.

Find out more about the Radio 2 Book Club.

Comments

Log in or Sign up to add a comment

News

Radio 2 Book Club - Winter titles

The Winter season of the Radio 2 Book Club is out now, with brilliant brand-new fiction titles to discover. The BBC Radio 2 Book Club is on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show. It features a wide range of titles and authors, recommending great reads from both new and much-loved writers, encouraging listeners to perhaps try out a genre they might not have read before, and share their opinions and insights on the titles and great reads they’re enjoying right now.

Resources

How to start a reading group

Interested in joining a reading group or starting one of your own? Download our quick guide to getting started. You can also download icebreaker questions to help get your discussion started, and a social media guide to show how you can share your reading with others online.

News

Discussion guides

We know how useful a discussion guide is for your book club meeting, so here you’ll find some recent guides provided by publishers. Free to download, you can use them to help choose your next book and guide your discussion.

View our other programmes