Just finished "Holmes and Moriarty" by Gareth Rubin. Thoughts from anyone else who did?
To me, it is disappointing that this is authorised by the Conan Doyle estate.
The biggest inconsistency is, at the end of the canon's "The final problem", Mary Watson is alive and Moriarty is dead, but here it is the other way around. And no it is not a case of Moriarty surviving the fall. The fall is referenced as a future event.
I also disliked numerous inconsistencies with the supposed timeframe. Eg, Moriarty referring to "smog" in the 19th century. Moran talking about Rajasthan (a colonial Britisher would have called it "Rajputana"). Quite a few others. Worst of all, Holmes using "momentarily" in the American sense of "in a moment" ("I shall fill you momentarily") which no Brit would have done in the 19th century and no Brit should do even today.
And Moran, though supposedly from an elite family and education and very well-spoken in the few words he has to say in "The empty house", turns into a barely literate low-level thug here, though he claims to have gone to Eton.
But if you ignore the original universe, it is a reasonably good read as an adventure story. Not as a detective story.
That's my take on it... Yours?