Sherlock Holmes
BBC, 1968
Peter Cushing rises above the BBC’s stinginess and inept adaptations to embody a Sherlock Holmes at once cerebral yet exuberant, aloof but socially aware. Nigel Stock’s Watson is something of a retired teddy bear and only six of sixteen episodes survive un-junked.
The House of Silk
by Anthony Horowitz (Orion, 2011)
An aging Watson harks back to the most shocking of all his adventures with Sherlock Holmes, Horowitz delivering a pastiche that artfully evokes Conan Doyle’s great detective. Holmes is lofty, alacritous and yet vulnerable, the mystery absorbing, the narrative suitably Watson-esque. Top-hole.
Moriarty
by Anthony Horowitz (Orion, 2014)
No Sherlock Holmes or Watson, just a cleverly subversive homage and a body on the slab at Reichenbach, both tagged ‘Moriarty.’ Therein lies the mystery, Horowitz leading as Inspector Athelney Jones investigates and Conan Doyle’s London plays host to the ultimate swindle.