September 4, 2008 at 2:39 pm · Filed under Books Etc
Last year, Picador published new, trade paperback editions of the first four books of the Mary Russell series. These are some of my all-time favourite books. My paperback editions of the early novels have seen better days–I’ve re-read The Beekeeper’s Apprentice so many times in the last few years that it’s dog-eared, its spine creased, its cover and pages worn (and I’m the kind of reader who, after reading a book two or three times, could probably still return it to the bookstore without raising any eyebrows.)
I have managed to acquire all but the first two books in hardcover, but those are the two that are most in need of replacement. Luckily, the Picador editions are absolutely gorgeous, inside and out, with vibrant covers and elegant, readable type on the inside. Even more luckily, these books, which retail for $16.25 in Canada, became available at BookCloseouts.com, an online bargain book site, for $4.99 apiece. Best deal ever, because I couldn’t justify to myself spending $65+tax on four books I already own in other editions. And believe me–I tried.
I wish Picador would release the later books in the series in the same edition, but I think I read somewhere that they don’t own the rights to publish them which, if true, is a pity. Anyway, enjoy the beautiful cover art and a couple of (slighly blurry) shots of the inside. I’ll be over here, cackling over my loot.
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Tags: Laurie R. King, Mary Russell
April 29, 2008 at 4:47 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
66. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen by Laurie R. King (Historical mystery) 405 p.
I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defence I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. (5)
And so begins one of the most magical books I’ve ever encountered. I was eleven or twelve when my mother first put a copy of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice into my hands. Although we both liked mystery novels, we didn’t really share the same taste, so I knew that anything she thought I’d like was sure to be something special.
At the time, I’d never read any Sherlock Holmes pastiches, so my immediate instinct, on encountering him in a story not written by Conan Doyle, was not to run screaming from the room. A lucky chance, because The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is not like any other Holmes story. For a start, it isn’t really about Holmes at all.
The narrator and protagonist is one Mary Russell, a young Jewish-American feminist who, after the death of her family, is placed in the guardianship of her aunt, and goes to live with her on the Sussex Downs. A chance meeting with Holmes leads to a kind of informal apprenticeship when the great detective realizes that here, at last, is someone with an intellect to match his own.
Although ostensibly retired, Holmes is far from abandoning cases altogether. When Mrs. Barker, a neighbour, brings Holmes a problem, Russell gets her first chance to see her mentor in action, and manages a few deductions of her own. The case is classic Holmes, with government secrets and mysterious poisonings.
Russell’s next case is far humbler; as she herself remarks, the theft of “thirty guineas and four hams, even in those days of chronic food shortages, were hardly the stuff of Times headlines” (103). Despite the affair’s relative unimportance, she acquits herself with credit, and it isn’t long before a genuinely noteworthy case comes along. The six-year-old daughter of an American senator is kidnapped for ransom, and although her parents are willing and able (barely) to meet the kidnappers’ demands, what guarantee do they have that she will be returned alive once the ransom is paid?
That case, although critical in itself, is also a turning point for Holmes and Russell’s partnership. It gives both Russell and Holmes and new confidence in Russell’s judgement and abilities—something they desperately need when it is revealed that Holmes has a new and deadly foe.
I’ve re-read this book a dozen times or more, and I’ve always found something new to enjoy about it. It’s one of those few, perfect books to which I would unhesitatingly award a rating of 10/10, or would automatically place at the top of my list of favourites in its genre. Mary Russell’s voice is unique, and Laurie R. King uses her pitch-perfect ear for dialect and vocabulary to make her sound like a WWI-era Oxbridge intellectual. And I know I’m not the only reader who has been completely charmed by the English settings of the book, particularly King’s descriptions of Oxford. She has a real gift for making a place come vividly to life with history and atmosphere.
There’s so much more I could say about this book, but I’ll confine myself to this: I have rarely enjoyed any book as much as this one, there is no mystery novel I like better, and if you haven’t read this yet, you’re missing something special.
I’m going to be re-reading all eight Mary Russell novels this year, in preparation for the release of the ninth, The Language of Bees, in 2009.
Pages read: 18,973
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Decades Challenge 2008, Laurie R. King, Mary Russell
February 11, 2008 at 12:15 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
6. Locked Rooms by Laurie R. King (Historical Mystery) 402 p.
This is my second time reading this, the latest book in the Mary Russell series. I first met Miss Russell more than a decade ago (half my life!) when my mother put The Beekeeper’s Apprentice into my hands. Although I don’t think any of the seven succeeding novels quite lived up to the first (although number five, O Jerusalem, comes close, in my opinion), I still enjoy the series very much.
I wasn’t 100% thrilled with Locked Rooms the first time I read it. It’s different from any of the other books, because alongside Mary Russell’s usual first-person narration, there’s a third-person perspective following her husband, Sherlock Holmes. The structure works for the plot, especially as Mary is an intensely unreliable narrator over the course of most of the book. Back in her hometown of San Francisco for the first time since the death of her family a decade earlier, in 1914, she is so distracted by recurring nightmares and the void where her childhood memories should be that she fails to appreciate the danger she may be in.
I loved seeing how Holmes felt about Mary, something that’s never been explored in the series before. I’m not exactly sure what it is about Locked Rooms that makes it inferior to its prequels in my eyes; somehow, the story just doesn’t come together early enough for me to really enjoy it. I did like it better on the second re-read, though.
My overall judgement? A good, but not brilliant, addition to one of the most remarkable (and enjoyable) mystery series in print.
Books read: 6
Pages read: 2,039
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Laurie R. King, Mary Russell
