A bit of pre-Christmas podcasting for you, as I sit down with Jack Anderson, author of The Return of Moriarty (2025) which, honestly now, is probably the very best Sherlock Holmes universe pastiche I’ve ever read.

Picking up — spoilers for ‘The Final Problem’ (1893) in case you’re 132 years behind on your TBR — after Holmes and Professor James Moriarty have gone over the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, Jack’s book posits a world in which Moriarty lives and, with his empire in ruins, must find a way to survive while keeping his identity secret. So how do you go about writing a book about such a famous villain? How do you make him someone the reader wants to spend time with? And, given how little there is about Moriarty in Doyle’s canon, how can an author claim to be sticking to the principles of the characters as originally laid out?

Into this and more do we get, all without spoilers so that you’re free once you’re done listening to add this to your Christmas list, or to just go and buy your own copy, and enjoy it with Jack’s thoughtful answers to my nosy questions fresh in your mind.

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here, on Spotify here, or by using the player below. 

Thanks go to Jack for both his time and the work that went into this wonderful book, to Jonny Berliner for my music, and to you, as ever, my faithful audience who continue to listen to these episodes even though my release schedule is a surprise even to me these days. Podcasting remains something I am committed to, but it’s so much more fun when I can do episodes like this which genuinely interest me, and I’m grateful for the patience of those of you who are happy to listen as and when and if new material is released.

Now, go and buy The Return of Moriarty; I non-legally-bindingly guarantee you won’t regret it.

~

All episodes of In GAD We Trust can be found here.