John Gardner's 'Moriarty' Returns One More Time
John Gardner
In early 2005, the news first hit the CommanderBond.net main page that former James Bond continuation novelist John Gardner had written a brand new Moriarty novel.
The book, featuring Professor James Moriarty, arch nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, was apart of a contract Gardner had signed in continuing his Moriarty novels. The first two in the series, The Return of Moriarty and The Revenge of Moriarty, were both published several decades earlier in 1974 and ’75, respectively.
Publishing delays must have obviously followed as the novel never hit bookshelves. Only now is this third Moriarty tale, simply titled Moriarty, finally scheduled for publication this upcoming November. The book will be published posthumously as Mr. Gardner died at the age of 80 in August 2007.
Moriarty will published by Quercus in the UK and Harcourt in the US. The official blurb follows:
It is the turn of the century and, having survived the struggle with Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls, Professor James Moriarty is alive and well and about to realize his plans to establish crime syndicates in the major cities of the United States. But suddenly he is called back to London, where his vast criminal society has been overrun by a rival concern led by the shadowy Sir Jordan Jack Idell–or Idle Jack–a supposed gentleman hoodlum acting on behalf of criminal elements in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany.
As Moriarty fights back–against both the unruly crime families and the forces of law and order–readers are thrown in among the lurkers, punishers, dippers, cracksmen, and the professor’s elite guard.
Moriarty lives again and revolts against those who attempt to oust him from his rightful place as king of “Napoleon of Crime.”
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