Play Book Tag discussion

Days after Moriarty and Holmes fall into Reichenbach Falls, Frederick Chase arrives from America, on the hunt for American criminal mastermind Clarence Devereaux, whom he believes contacted Moriarty in order to collaborate in crime. He teams up with Scotland Yard Inspector Athelney Jones, whom we met in the short story The Three Monarchs. Jones has become an avid student of Holmes's methods, and has become almost as astute. This story is narrated by Chase, who plays Watson to Jones's Holmes.

Though the atmosphere is similar to the first book, the change of narrator and protagonist gives the author more freedom to write a darker tale, with more gore along the lines of a modern thriller. It is masterfully done, though the twist at the end was not a surprise to me as I had my suspicions midway even though I did not work out any of the details.