If you read one book before Jack Anderson’s The Mark of Moriarty, make it The Return of Moriarty. It introduces Clara Mendel and establishes her uneasy partnership with Professor James Moriarty. If you have time for one short story as well, read Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem” first. It gives you the original Reichenbach Falls encounter that Anderson reimagines.
Crooked Lane Books has scheduled The Mark of Moriarty for November 10, 2026 in the U.S. Penguin Random House lists hardcover, paperback and ebook editions for that date. The sequel takes Clara to New York, where a woman found barefoot in the snow brings her into a case involving a mysterious society.
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Jack Anderson’s Moriarty books in order
| Order | Book | Why read it here? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Return of Moriarty | Meet Clara as a medical student and see how a locked-room mystery brings her and Moriarty together. |
| 2 | The Mark of Moriarty | Follow Clara into her first case as a doctor, where her patient’s safety puts her old partnership under new pressure. |
Read The Return of Moriarty for Clara’s side of the story
In The Return of Moriarty, Clara Mendel returns to Schloss Alber, her childhood home, and finds it on the verge of ruin. Anderson sets the novel after Reichenbach Falls, with Holmes dead and Moriarty alive. The professor becomes entangled in a locked-room mystery that Holmes was unable to solve.
The locked room is the immediate hook. The reason to start here is Clara. The first book lets you meet her before she has patients of her own and see the circumstances that make a man like Moriarty someone she might work with. In the sequel, she already knows what he brings to an investigation. Having read the first book, you can bring your own judgment about whether his help is worth taking.
If you enjoy mysteries set in isolated houses, find The Return of Moriarty on Amazon.
Read “The Final Problem” to see what Anderson changes
In Doyle’s “The Final Problem,” Watson recounts the events that bring Holmes and Moriarty to Reichenbach Falls. Pay attention to what Watson witnesses and what he has to infer. That distinction makes the story a particularly good companion to Anderson’s series. The original filters Moriarty through the people who fear him. Anderson’s premise gives the professor a future and puts Clara close enough to form her own opinion of him. Read The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes free at Project Gutenberg.
Want one more Doyle novel? Try The Valley of Fear
The Valley of Fear opens with a coded warning and a death at a moated manor. It’s the optional pick if the country-house puzzle in The Return of Moriarty sounds as appealing as the prospect of seeing more of the professor’s influence. Read it when you have time for a second full novel. “The Final Problem” is the quicker route to the specific moment Anderson reworks.
What is The Mark of Moriarty about?
Viola Bellman is discovered barefoot in a snowy New York alley, too traumatized to speak. She’s carrying a Bible with a note pointing to the Arcane Society of New York. Clara joins the Sabel Club, which is trying to make sense of Viola’s case, and takes Viola on as her first patient. Then Moriarty returns.
That setup gives Clara two responsibilities that can pull in different directions. An investigator wants to learn what Viola knows. Her doctor has to consider what it will cost Viola to tell her. That’s the part of the premise that makes me curious about the sequel. Clara has a reason to slow down precisely when a puzzle solver like Moriarty might want to push harder.
If that’s the case you want to follow next, check The Mark of Moriarty on Amazon.
Can you start with The Mark of Moriarty?
The sequel offers a clear entry point through Viola’s case. I’d still start with The Return of Moriarty if you have the choice. The mystery gives you a new reason to follow Clara, and the first book gives you the history you need to weigh what happens when Moriarty shows up again.
If you’re more interested in meeting Holmes and Watson at the beginning of their partnership, start with our review of A Study in Scarlet. If you’re here for Anderson’s sequel, the shortest reading plan is The Return of Moriarty followed by The Mark of Moriarty.
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