'The Infernal Device' (251 pp) first appeared in hardback in 1978; it was published by Signet Books in paperback in January 1979. The cover artist is uncredited.
Author Kurland (b. 1938) has written a number of novels in the sci-fi and crime / detective genres, starting in the 1960s and continuing to the present day. My review of his 1975 sci-fi novel Pluribus can be viewed here.
'The Infernal Device' features as its hero Professor James Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. Succeeding volumes in Kurland's 'Moriarty' series include Death by Gaslight (1982), The Great Game (2001), The Empress of India (2006), and Who Thinks Evil (2014).
'The Infernal Device' opens in Turkey in 1885, where an American reporter named Benjamin Barnett has made the acquaintance of a young British naval officer named Lieutenant Sefton. Barnett takes up Sefton's offer to witness firsthand the demonstration of a Submersible craft, newly purchased by the Turkish government, in the Bosphorus Strait. Barnett is intrigued by Sefton's avowal that the Submersible heralds a new era in naval warfare.
However, as Barnett and Sefton look on, something very wrong takes place at the demonstration. Barnett soon finds his situation in Turkey to be a precarious one.......but Barnett has had the good fortune to have befriended the Napoleon of Crime, Professor James Moriarty. And by working with Moriarty, Benjamin Barnett will find himself enmeshed in a web of intrigue and danger, as Moriarty pits himself against an evil Russian genius bent on triggering global conflict.
Unfortunately for Barnett and Moriarty, Sherlock Homes believes Moriarty to be a villain in his own right...........and is intent on sending his archenemy to prison no matter the consequences.........
'The Infernal Device' doesn't really feature enough sci-fi content to be labeled a work of proto-Steampunk (although it uses technologies that certainly were cutting-edge for the Victorian era as its centerpieces). While Moriarty remains the hero (or villain) of the story, Holmes does make enough appearances to make the book a credible entry into the large library of Holmes pastiches, although perhaps less so as a traditional detective novel and more as a swashbuckling adventure tale.
Author Kurland keeps the narrative moving at a good clip, using well-written dialogue and well-drawn characters to give his novel an engaging quality that will have you finishing the book within three or four sittings.
Summing up, 'The Infernal Device' is an entertaining novel, and one fans of Steampunk will want to consider.
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