The House of Silk The House of Silk The House of Silk is a Sherlock Holmes novel written by British author Anthony Horowitz, published in 2011. The book was promoted with the claim it was the first time the Conan Doyle Estate had authorised a new non-Doyle Sherlock Holmes pastiche. "The House of Silk" begins with a brief, personal recounting of events by Watson, much like that in "A Study in Scarlet" by the original author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The reader is informed of the particulars regarding the first meeting of Watson and Holmes, including the circumstances of the Afghan War and a
Sherlock Holmes link between medical investigation and the detection of crime. Other inspirations have been considered. One is thought to be Francis "Tanky" Smith, a policeman and master of disguise who went on to become Leicester's first private detective. Another might be "Maximilien Heller", by French author Henry Cauvain. It is not known if Conan Doyle read "Maximilien Heller", but he was fluent in French, and in this 1871 novel (sixteen years before the first adventure of Sherlock Holmes), Henry Cauvain imagined a depressed, anti-social, polymath, cat-loving, and opium-smoking Paris-based detective. Details about Sherlock Holmes' life are scarce in Conan Doyle's stories.