Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Gardner, John (Edmund) - Charles Nicol

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CHARLES NICOL

[According to John Gardner in The Return of Moriarty], nobody disappeared into the boiling pool at the base of the Reichenbach Fall; instead, Holmes and Moriarty agreed on a truce. Neither was to return to London for three years, and after that they would keep out of each other's way. Preposterous! Holmes would never have agreed.

Gardner's Moriarty is a young fratricide who often disguises himself as his deceased elder brother, the mathematics professor—apparently the disguise had fooled Holmes. He does indeed control most of the crime in London, but his modus operandi is clearly borrowed from The Godfather….

Gardner's reluctance to present Holmes himself is something of a mystery; after his unlikely explanation that Holmes refuses to deal further with Moriarty, he invents an Inspector Crow to take on the role of detective in hot pursuit. Incidentally, no fewer than four love interests are developed here, three for the...

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