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In theory, of course, Anthony Horowitz shouldn't be very good. Too prolific by half you might think having written all of the Foyle's War TV series, a few Midsomer Murder episodes, the Alex Rider spy books for teenagers, a James Bond novel, two pitch-perfect Sherlock Holmes stories, a handful of witty novellas like Vermeer to Eternity, a collection of horror stories and several well-crafted detective novels that keep you guessing to the end such as Magpie Murders.

But, in truth, far from not very good, he is a master of his craft and not only that, when I have heard him on the radio talking about writing and books in general, he is so full of excitement and bubbling over with enthusiasm it makes you want to pick up a pen straight away, and to rub salt into the wound he is also good-looking! I should hate him but strangely I don't so instead I have bought and read every one of his books with the exception of the Alex Ryder series, but that's just because I am 73 years old.

So, which to choose? I only post something if a book hangs around in the memory for a while so that after a year or so it prompts me to read it again. Such a one is Moriarty the second of his Sherlock Holmes novels that tells of events after Holmes's supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls.

We meet Inspector Athelney Jones, one of the lesser known Scotland Yard detectives whose hapless shortcomings were often sneered at by Watson in the Strand Magazine stories of Holmes's adventures. Jones has journeyed to the Reichenbach Falls to examine the corpse of Moriarty, recently recovered from the river beneath. He is joined by Frederick Chase, an American and an agent for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in New York. Chase is on the trail of a fellow countryman, thought to be in England in order to take over Moriarty's now leaderless crime empire.

Since we last met him Athelney Jones has become a convert to Holmesian methods, studying all of Watson's stories assiduously to learn the master's techniques, even beginning his own classification of cigar and tobacco ash. During his first meeting with Frederick Chases he astounds him with a display of deductive reasoning about his personal habits and the difficulties he has encountered during his journey to Switzerland.

Now that the scene is set...the game's afoot. And what an excellent game it proves to be. The hunt for the new criminal mastermind is told with verve and skill with plenty of surprises along the way and Victorian London is wonderfully evoked with the pea-souper fog seeming to infuse the pages.

I first read the Conan Doyles stories as a 13 year old over and over again. I absorbed every detail, saw everything in my mind's eye, desperately wanted a gasogene and to keep pipe tobacco in a persian slipper while firing my revolver into the wall to create the Queen's initials. So believe me when I say that Anthony Horowitz does not put a foot wrong in his re-creation of the characters I know so well.

A true tour de force in my opinion, I loved it.

Kindle editions are £3.99 at Amazon.

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