Named for Professor James Moriarty, whom some would describe as a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes {see planet  (5049)} stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Described by Holmes as “the Napoleon of crime”, and also as “the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid — a book that ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it”, the “most dangerous and capable criminal in Europe” died in a struggle with Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. (M 22505) _ _.