The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Moonstone’s Curse

Siciliano continues to excel in the niche he’s created for himself in the ever-growing universe of new Sherlock Holmes novels. Like most of his previous pastiches, his fifth (after 2016’s The White Worm) is inspired by a well-known work of suspense fiction—this time, Wilkie Collins’s seminal The Moonstone. About 50 years after the events of that book, the legendary curse of the diamond known as the Moonstone casts a pall over the life of Alice Bromley, whose great-great-uncle stole it from India in 1799. Alice has inherited a life-interest in the jewel, but views that as a burden and now fears that a mysterious Indian man she has spotted lurking outside her London home has designs on it. Her attentive husband, Charles, seeks out Holmes for help, and the detective agrees to assess the safety measures that Charles has taken to safeguard the gem from theft before one last public display. Siciliano has devised an intelligent challenge for the iconic character, who’s faithful to Conan Doyle’s original, notwithstanding the use of a Watson substitute for the tale’s narrator. (Feb.)