author : Laurie R. King

Mary Russell, a precocious 15-year-old, stumbles over a retired Sherlock Holmes on the South Downs during WWI. The two form an unlikely friendship, and she becomes an apprentice sleuth.

Put like that, it sounds as if it has the potential to be truly appalling. But it works very well indeed (despite the prefaced pretence by the author that this is merely a transcription of the real Mary Russell's journal). Russell is an engaging heroine, smart, and well able to hold her own against Holmes. This is no bumbling Watson, there to throw Holmes' intelligence into sharp relief. Yet it all fits well into all the Holmes mythos (unless, maybe, you are a Baker Street fanatic, but I'm not). The mystery kept me reading, and kept me guessing. The solution appeared to be plucked from thin air, until I thought back over the clues, which had been there all along. Great stuff. I hope the series keeps up this standard.

Mary Russell's friend Veronica is involved with a charismatic new religious and political leader. When several wealthy women die, leaving their money to the Cause, Mary starts to investigate. But she has just attained her majority, and has become a wealthy woman herself. Soon her investigation takes a personal turn, and Mary is in danger of losing her academic reputation, her sanity, and her very life.

A curious blend of theology, feminism, and drug abuse, this second Mary Russell novel is more thriller than detective story, but just as enthralling as the first. (And the well chosen chapter heading quotations are enough to make one's blood boil!)

By this third volume of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, the two detectives are married. Into their domestic bliss -- or more accurately, semi-boredom -- comes an old friend they met in Palestine, who presents them with an amazing manuscript, and then is promptly murdered. (As in all such stories, it never does to be the friend of a detective.) So off go the detective pair to find out who the murderer is, and what the motive is. Red herrings abound, and their investigation is shown in some detail. I suspect it's that detail that has made me drop the rating for this volume slightly -- it seems to slightly misbalance the plot, although it is necessary for part of the character development.

At one point we get an amusing interlude with someone who is obviously -- although never explicitly identified as -- Lord Peter Wimsey. (The characterisation is good, but it does rather detract from the conceit that these stories are merely being transcribed by King from Russell's own manuscripts -- unless Sayers was also supposedly writing about real people?) And there are certain interesting parallels between Mary Russell and Harriet Vane that one can read between the lines here.

This case takes place barely a few months after the events of A Letter of Mary, and Mary Russell is still feeling the strain of investigating the death of her friend. Holmes calls her to Dartmoor, to help solve a case of a new hound on the moor, possibly linked with a killing.

We get a clever interweaving of the original Hound of the Baskervilles story, along with a new case set thirty years later, with lots of acid comments from Holmes about the way Conan Doyle wrote up the original. There is a real feeling of place -- the bleak and desolate moor, and why people might love it nonetheless.

As in the previous books, the team of Holmes and Russell often investigate different aspects of the case in parallel, focussing on Mary's viewpoint. So rather than being simply a Holmes pastiche, this is a story mainly of Mary, with a bit of Holmes. And Mary Russell is a very good character in her own right. I think this is what makes the books work for me.

At one point during the tale of The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Holmes and Russell flee to Palestine for a while, to throw their pursuer off the scent. This is the tale of what happens to them there. It is early 1919, at the end of the Great War, and everything is in turmoil as the British attempt to bring some kind of order to the newly liberated Palestine. Holmes and Russell turn up in the middle of this, sent there at Mycroft's behest, but not very welcomed by his agents. Nevertheless, Holmes soon sniffs out a mysterious murder, and sets off to investigate.

Like The Moor, this has a tremendous feeling of place. The desert is beautifully and lovingly depicted, as is Mary's beloved Jerusalem. I could almost feel the heat, and the sand between my toes. There is not a lot of detection, but there is a lot of history, and language, and action, and fascinating detail.

Holmes and Russell are only just back home from their investigation on The Moor when they are asked to help an old friend, in very different circumstances from when they first knew him. They are willing to help, but don't even know if there is a case to be investigated. So they keep poking around, until a thread appears. And pretty soon, everything starts unravelling untidily.

Another interesting excursion into history, as we get to see life a few years after the First World War, and the War itself in retrospect, as the detectives try to track down what really happened five years earlier. The discovery of the real villain is helped by a big coincidence, but there are some good scenes, fun moments, and traumatic events, along the way.

Holmes and Russell are sent off to India to investigate the possibility that Kimball O'Hara (immortalised in Kipling's Kim) might still be alive. But when they arrive, they discover more worrying events to investigate, which requires them to go undercover as travelling magicians, and risk the wrath of a local sport-mad marharajah. Mary even ends up impersonating her own non-existent twin brother!

More fun with history, with place, and with weaving fictional characters into the story. Both the boat trip to India, and the various modes of travel through the country, are described in rich vivid detail. Again, little detection: this is more a gentle spy thriller, but is still great fun.

After their adventures in India, Russell and Holmes set off for San Francisco (by way of an as yet undocumented adventure in Japan). Russell needs to go to America to take care of her estate there, but is plagued by bad dreams that seem to indicate that she was there during the great earthquake and fire of 1906, despite her having no memory of it. Once she arrives back at her childhood home, a series of strange events indicate that she needs to find out what happened, both in 1906, and in 1914, when her family were killed in a car crash. Russell is initially devastated, both by her dreams, and the shocks that are uncovered by the investigation, leaving Holmes to carry on alone. But she soon rallies, and the pair sort out the problem, with the help of a few interesting characters along the way.

A fun view of San Francisco during the flapper era, and some intriguing puzzles bringing to life events from long ago, make this an interesting extension to the series. There are also several chapters from Holmes' point of view, which add to the interest this time around.

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are just back home in Surrey after their adventures in India and San Francisco, when Damian Adler, a man from Holmes' past, appears, asking for their help in tracking down his missing wife and child. This leads to a frantic race to solve the puzzle before Adler is arrested, or killed.

A great mix of detection, Bohemian artists, and sinister religious cults, with a hefty dose of Mycroft, and lots of breaking and entering, to spice up the mix. There is a great feeling of temporal place, with Mary being somewhat shocked by Bohemian decadence, despite her own unconventional lifestyle. What I like about this is the quiet competence and independence of the main character, coupled with her lack of histrionics over her husband's similar independence.

The ending resolves the main issue, but leaves a whopping "to be continued" for the next book.

This is a direct continuation of the events in The Language of Bees, as Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes scrabble to keep themselves safe and clear Damian Adler's name before Lestrade's arrest warrants catch up with them. They are separated again, on the run, with a seemingly all-powerful enemy matching their every step. Even the seemingly omnipotent Mycroft Holmes may be outmatched.

Here we have a multi-viewpoint story -- Russell, Holmes, Mycroft, and the Enemy -- which makes for rather fragmented reading. It does allow for multiple cliffhangers, although King cheats a couple of times. There's also a massive coincidence moving part of the plot forward. But the enemy is sufficiently clever and well-placed to pose a real threat. There's not a lot of detection, just using detecting skills to evade capture. But as usual it's the filling in of the backstory -- this time mostly of Mycroft (including a cheeky understated foreshadowing about his signature) -- that forms a goodly chunk of the book.

This time the story really ends -- as much as one with ongoing characters can "end".