Book Review: The Great Game

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

The Great Game     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Michael Kurland
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Series: Moriarty # 3
St. Martin’s, Aug 2001, $23.95, 304 pp.

The ingenious Professor Moriarty admits to having performed some illegal deeds, but nothing even remotely close to the claims of the drug addicted Holmes. If any of it was true, Moriarty knows that the international intelligentsia would not enter in scientific debate with him. To Moriarty, the cocaine has turned Holmes’ deductive logic into paranoia perhaps because the professor is the only person in England who is Holmes’ intellectual superior.

Karl Strassenkopp visits Moriarty to warn him that his agent in Vienna is in danger, but someone kills Karl with a crossbow bolt. Unable to ignore the homicide and the warning the victim passed to his servant, Moriarty begins an investigation that is not concerned about legalities in order to learn the truth. With Holmes on his tail, Moriarty starts to uncover a clever and devious plot to cause World War I to break out in 1891 Europe unless he can find a way to checkmate his wise yet unknown opponent while keeping Holmes at bay.

The third Moriarty mystery is an entertaining historical fiction mystery that brings world events of the last decade of the nineteenth century to the front stage. The story line is fun though at times light as Moriarty comes across as a brilliant mathematician with intellectual tastes rather than the mastermind criminal. Purists may object to the depiction of Holmes as a foot behind his arch enemy, but most readers will enjoy Michael Kurland’s novel and probably will purchase the previous Moriarty tales (THE INFERNAL DEVICE AND DEATH BY GASLIGHT) being re-released in August.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner