The Napoleon of Crime

Written By Sarah Kolb

This episode is a deep-dive case file into Holmes’s great nemesis - the Napoleon of Crime. 

As a follow-up to our discussion about “The Final Problem,” we’re taking a closer look at Doyle’s great criminal mastermind - Moriarity. The all-knowing villain is introduced and brings about Holmes’s supposed downfall in that story. He’s been adapted many, many times - from his own pastiches and Holmes stories to comic books and musicals. He’s almost as famous as Holmes himself.

Sarah & Marisa discuss the many, many version of Moriarty out there, from their personal favorites to perplexing appearances.

Do you have a favorite Moriarity? Something we missed? We'd love to hear it!

On-screen Moriarty adaptations we discuss in this episode:

  • Granada Holmes - played by Eric Porter

  • Soviet Holmes - played by Viktor Evgrafov

  • Elementary - played by Natalie Dormer

  • BBC Sherlock - played by Andrew Scott

  • Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - played by Jared Harris

  • Basil Rathbone adaptations - we discuss “The Curse of the Spiderwoman,” as well as “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” “Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon,” and “The Woman in Green.”

  • Miss Sherlock - The Moriarty-ish character is played by Yuki Saito

  • The Great Mouse Detective - Professor Rattigan is played by Vincent Price

  • Watson on CBS - played by Randall Park

  • Enola Holmes 2 - played by Sharon Duncan-Brewster

  • The episodes "Elementary, Dear Data" and "Ship in a Bottle" in Star Trek - The Next Generation

  • The Seven-Per-Cent Solution - portrayed in the film by Laurence Olivier

  • Audible’s podcast Moriarty - played by Dominic Monaghan

  • Luther

  • Killing Eve

Books, research, & more:

  • Moriarty Unmasked: Conan Doyle and an Anglo-Irish Quarrel, by Jane Stanford (also That Irishman: The Life and Times of John O'Connor Power by the same author)

  • Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows and other The Cthulhu Casebooks novels by James Lovegrove

  • The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicolas Meyer

  • The Secret of Sherlock Holmes by Jeremy Paul

  • Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

  • The League of Extraordinary Gentleman comic books by Alan Moore

  • CATS… by Andrew Lloyd Weber, also The Naming of Cats by T.S. Eliot

Sarah Kolb
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The Final Problem