The game is afoot again as Sherlock Holmes returns in his first official “authorized” adventure since the last original story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1915.  “The House of Silk” is written by Anthony Horowitz, who has become known for his teen adventure series The Gatekeepers and his Alex Rider teen-spy series of books.
While his more well-known stories may be aimed towards a teen audience, this one is not suitable for all ages as the book does delve into more mature areas. “The House of Silk” story picks up like most Holmes’ books in which Watson is chronicling yet another mystery that the duo has encountered, this one being the most shocking in his mind as it deals with scandal and corruption at the highest levels.
The story is very interesting and like most mystery novels half the fun is attempting to put the pieces together before the end.  The story is able to stay intriguing throughout all 300 pages as the mystery continues to evolve and expand at every turn with new threads of the mystery being discovered just as the last one was getting old.
This story isn’t without faults and on occasion some of Holmes’ unorthodox methods are questionable and do manage to take the reader out of an otherwise believable and realistic world.  There is also an overabundance of characters which makes the mystery difficult to keep track of at times, but the author manages to use them effectively to lessen confusion.
Fortunately, this story stands on its own as it does not require any prior knowledge of Sherlock Holmes and despite the many characters it is easy enough to follow and still intriguing enough to entertain.  Most readers looking for an interesting and easy to follow mystery will enjoy this new Sherlock Holmes story.