A Quick Detour Before the Main Event
I'll be honest - I listened to this one while waiting for my wife at the dentist's office. Under two hours, so I figured why not. And look, I teach high school English. I'm not the target audience here. But Ridley Pearson doing a young Moriarty origin story? That's the kind of premise that makes an old literature nerd sit up and pay attention.
Here's the thing about prequels to classic rivalries - they're either brilliant or they feel like homework. This one lands somewhere in the middle, which is both its charm and its limitation.
What Pearson Gets Right
The decision to center this on James Moriarty rather than Holmes is genuinely clever. We've had a thousand Sherlock origin stories. But young Moriarty? The boy who becomes the Napoleon of Crime? That's fresh territory, and Pearson approaches it with the kind of respect for source material that this English teacher appreciates.
The setup is deceptively simple - twenty-four hours before everything changes for James and his sister Moria. There's danger circling the Moriarty family, secrets that feel appropriately Victorian in their weight, and the kind of tension that comes from knowing the destination even when you don't know the route. Pearson understands that good mystery writing - even for younger readers - is about what you withhold as much as what you reveal.
Nicola Barber's narration carries this well. Her pacing is measured without being slow, and she handles the period-appropriate dialogue with clear diction that doesn't feel stuffy. For a story aimed at middle-grade readers, that's harder than it sounds. You can't camp it up, but you can't be boring either. She walks that line.
The Prequel Problem (And It's Not Really a Problem)
Okay, so here's my one complaint - and it's barely a complaint. At just under two hours, this is more of an appetizer than a meal. It's explicitly a "digital prequel," which is marketing-speak for "this exists to get you to buy the real books." I knew that going in. You should too.
But does that make it bad? Not really. It makes it incomplete by design. You get a glimpse of James's world, the dangers surrounding his family, some genuinely tense moments of intrigue and escape - and then it ends. Right when things are getting interesting. Right before they arrive at Baskerville Academy. Right before they meet Holmes.
My students would call this a cliffhanger. I'd call it effective marketing wrapped in competent storytelling. (Don't tell them I said that. They think I'm above such observations.)
Who This Is Actually For
Let me be direct: if you're an adult looking for a serious literary reimagining of the Holmes-Moriarty dynamic, this isn't it. Go read Anthony Horowitz's "Moriarty" or revisit the original Conan Doyle.
But if you've got a kid who's showing interest in mystery fiction - maybe they've burned through "The Mysterious Benedict Society" or "The 39 Clues" - this is a solid gateway drug to the classics. Pearson knows his young audience. The prose is accessible without being dumbed down, the stakes feel real without being traumatizing, and the Victorian setting is evoked without drowning in period detail.
And honestly? There's something to be said for introducing young readers to Moriarty as a character with depth rather than just "the bad guy." That's the kind of narrative complexity that might - might - make them curious about the original stories someday. (A teacher can dream.)
The Narration Question
Nicola Barber does solid work here. I couldn't find much about her other performances online, but based on this, she's got a good ear for young adult fiction. Her James sounds appropriately earnest, her adult characters carry weight without melodrama, and she handles the action sequences with enough energy to keep things moving.
Some listeners have mentioned her accent can be occasionally distracting - I didn't find that to be the case, but accents are subjective. What I can say is that her diction is clean, her pacing serves the story, and she doesn't talk down to her audience. For a sub-two-hour listen aimed at kids, that's pretty much everything you need.
Final Thoughts
This is a well-crafted piece of marketing disguised as a short story. And I mean that less cynically than it sounds. Pearson is a professional, Barber delivers a clean performance, and the whole thing does exactly what it's supposed to do: introduce young readers to a world they'll want to explore further.
Is it going to change anyone's life? No. Is it worth two hours of your time if you're curious about the Lock and Key series? Absolutely. Is it something I'd recommend to my students who think classics are boring? Actually, yes. Because sometimes the best way to get a teenager interested in Conan Doyle is to start with someone else's version of his villain.
My mom will probably fall asleep during this review too. But that's okay. Some stories are meant for specific audiences, and this one knows exactly who it's for.
