The great merit of "The House of Silk" is the enormous debt that Mr. Horowitz clearly thinks he owes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

WSJ: Book Review: The House of Silk

No matter how devious the mystery, and violent the detail, no alert reader of "The House of Silk" will be able to spend more than a half-dozen pages in its company without wanting to laugh.

WSJ: Book Review: The House of Silk

On the other hand, it is this resolute over-egging of the pudding that gives "The House of Silk" its charm: a kind of constant creative exuberance, born of a suspicion that unless every single element of the Holmes legend can be brought to the feast, the story is bound to fall flat.

WSJ: Book Review: The House of Silk

The commission - chaired by Paul Silk, a former clerk to the Welsh assembly and the House of Commons - is examining how the Welsh government is funded, looking at whether it should take further responsibility for raising the money it spends.

BBC: Silk commission debate part one

Travel on this canal for designer (and knockoff) shopping at Siam Square and visit the Jim Thompson House, the beautiful teak museum home of an American silk trader, and other central Bangkok sites such as the Bo Bae wholesale clothing market or the hip Thonglor neighbourhood, full of boutiques and cafes.

BBC: Exploring Bangkok��s canals

Selected visitors to her business in an 18th-century house in Dublin would be received in her drawing room with its yellow silk wall-coverings and its framed photographs of famous people.

ECONOMIST: Sybil Connolly