Sherlock teams up with his nemesis as Conan Doyle’s legacy lives on
A new novel approved by the author’s family will focus on Holmes’s rival Prof Moriarty and key minor characters
The biggest thorn in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s side was the world’s obstinate obsession with just one of his creations: Sherlock Holmes. And now, 94 years after the author’s death, the story is much the same: the deerstalker hat and pipe remain the internationally recognised emblems of the greatest detective who never lived. The boxing gloves of Rodney Stone, his other adventuring hero? Or the bushy beard of The Lost World explorer Professor George Challenger? Not so much.
But Conan Doyle’s descendants have a longterm plan to correct this imbalance, and the Observer can reveal their latest weapon. Thriller writer Gareth Rubin is bringing out a new, officially approved Holmes story that will give equal billing to arch-villain Professor James Moriarty. The new novel unites the detecting skills of the talented sleuth with those of his greatest adversary, a criminal mastermind who runs an unseen network of thieves, murderers and blackmailers and yet never leaves a trace to link him to the scene.
“One of our aims is to get the world to know more about other Conan Doyle characters. And not just Moriarty, but those in other Holmes mysteries, like Colonel Sebastian Moran, or in other adventure series, like the Professor Challenger stories,” said Richard Pooley, Conan Doyle’s step-great-grandson and the man who runs the literary estate alongside Doyle’s great-nephew, Richard Doyle, and his great-niece, Catherine Bates. The family have endorsed Rubin’s book, Holmes and Moriarty , as a worthy successor. “Gareth has drawn these characters very well, including Colonel Moran, who is key to this story,” added Pooley. “Moran
was once described by Holmes as ‘the second most dangerous man in London’, and he tells half of this new mystery. As Moriarty’s right-hand man, he only crops up in a couple of original Holmes stories, I believe.” Efforts to spin out fresh entertainment from an established piece of work have become crucial to profitably managing a literary property. Earlier this month, the Roald Dahl Estate announced new books about his most popular characters, each penned by different authors, including Greg James, Konnie Huq and Adam Ka Kay.
In the same way, the owners of Agatha C Christie’s back catalogue, a company now run by her great-grandson son James Jam Prichard, have looked to relaunch her vast output of work in new ways. wa Mystery writer Sophie Hannah has been in charge of revitalising talisingH Hercule Poirot in print, while on television tele the screenwriter Sarah Phelps Phelp added some edgy terror to Christie’s Chri screen adaptations, and Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre gave an equally equ controversial, anti-colonial nia rendering of Murder is Easy last la Christmas.
Rubin, who works at the Observer, O is best known for his h recent bestseller The T