| rdfs:comment | - Mary Judith Russell Holmes is a detective and theologian. She starts out in the first book as a 15-year-old orphan, literally stumbling over Sherlock Holmes while hiking in Sussex. Over the course of several years she becomes his apprentice, colleague, confidante, and finally his wife. Russell was born in England, but spent much of her life in northern California. Her father was a Boston Brahmin, but made San Francisco his home, as he felt California had the potential for tremendous growth (and profit). Her mother was a British daughter of a rabbi. As a consequence, the family divided their time between Sussex and California. As a six-year-old, Russell survived the 1906 earthquake with only fleeting memories of the 1906 earthquake and ensuing fire. And as a 14-year-old, she survives the f
- Mary Russell is the protagonist of a series of detective novels by Laurie R. King based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. After her parents and brother are killed in a car crash, 15-year-old Mary returns to the family home on the Sussex Downs. There she meets Sherlock Holmes, who retired twelve years ago in 1903 and has become a beekeeper. He is surprised to find that she shares his talent for deduction, and she becomes both his friend and his apprentice. Later novels upgraded her to wife.
|
| Appearances | - The Beekeeper's Apprentice, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, A Letter of Mary, The Moor, O Jerusalem, Justice Hall, The Game, Locked Rooms, The Language of Bees, The God of the Hive, Beekeeping for Beginners, Pirate King, Garment of Shadows, Dreaming Spies
|
| abstract | - Mary Russell is the protagonist of a series of detective novels by Laurie R. King based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. After her parents and brother are killed in a car crash, 15-year-old Mary returns to the family home on the Sussex Downs. There she meets Sherlock Holmes, who retired twelve years ago in 1903 and has become a beekeeper. He is surprised to find that she shares his talent for deduction, and she becomes both his friend and his apprentice. Later novels upgraded her to wife. So far there are 9 novels in the series, set between 1915 and 1924. In order of publication, they are:
* The Beekeeper's Apprentice. Set between 1915 and 1918, covers Holmes and Russell's first meeting and the three years she spent as his apprentice. Then a mysterious genius starts trying to kill them...
* A Monstrous Regiment of Women. Mary celebrates her 21st birthday (complete with independence from an unpleasant aunt and a large inheritance) by going out on the town. She runs into an old friend who introduces her to the charismatic Margery Childe. Margery runs the New Temple of God, a progressive, intellectual group that fascinates Mary. But somehow, rich young women keep dying and leaving Margery money...
* A Letter of Mary. An archaeologist whom Holmes and Russell met in Jerusalem appears in England with an ancient letter--which, when translated, is addressed "From Mariam, an apostle of Jesus the Anointed one, to my sister in the town of Madgala." Since nobody else would believe the letter is real, she's brought it to them--just in case. A few days later, she turns up murdered...
* The Moor. Holmes and Russell return to the site of one of his most famous cases . . . Baskerville Manor.
* O Jerusalem. This book takes place out of chronological order--it's a flashback to a point near the end of the first book when Holmes and Russell found it necessary to disappear for a while. Holmes's brother Mycroft suggests that, if they're leaving England anyway, they may as well make themselves useful, and sends them to Jerusalem to... actually, half the mystery in this one is what Mycroft and his Palestinian allies want.
* Justice Hall. This book takes place after The Moor, but reads more like a sequel to O Jerusalem--which is part of why O Jerusalem was published out of order. While in Palestine, two of Holmes and Russell's closest allies were Ali and Mahmoud, a pair of spies who pretend--very well, according to Holmes--to be Arabs but are actually British aristocrats. Now, several years later, they're back in England, and unless they can find another heir for the titular Justice Hall, they can never go back to Palestine.
* The Game. Mycroft Holmes summons his brother and sister-in-law to his rooms late one evening, and informs them that they're going to India to rescue a kidnapped spy. This doesn't strike Mary as particularly unusual until she reads the name on the spy's records--Kimball O'Hara, hero of Rudyard Kipling's book Kim. (She does admit that she's in no position to say "You mean he's REAL?" being married to a man most people consider a figment of an out-of-work doctor's imagination.)
* Locked Rooms. Holmes and Russell are apparently taking the long way home from India (Holmes mentions a three-week stay in Japan, which might be hinting at another flashback book later), and Russell decides to stop in San Francisco, her hometown, to settle the details of her inheritance. Between the odd wording of her father's will, the people who keep trying to kill her and the three family friends who were killed within a few months of the "accident," she soon realizes her family was murdered...
* The Language of Bees The first part of an arc, it deals with the mystery of a disappearing beehive, and the darker story of the disappearing wife and daughter of Holmes' talented and disturbed artist son, Damien Adler (Irene Adler was his mother). Holmes and Russell explore Damien's dark past, which involves the Shanghai underworld, the London bohemian scene, and a series of sacrifices and suicides that have something to do with a cult called 'the Children of Lights.'
* The God of the Hive (published April 2010) is the conclusion of the arc introduced in the previous book. Russell and Holmes are trying to make it back to London but they are separated, each are burdened by the proceeding events, they are being pursued and obstacles appear at every turn. Then there's Mycroft's problem.
* The Pirate King. Trying to avoid an uncomfortable visit with her brother-in-law, Russell ends up as part of a film crew filming a version of The Pirates of Penzance. Hiring real pirates to play the pirates turns out to not be a good idea.
- Mary Judith Russell Holmes is a detective and theologian. She starts out in the first book as a 15-year-old orphan, literally stumbling over Sherlock Holmes while hiking in Sussex. Over the course of several years she becomes his apprentice, colleague, confidante, and finally his wife. Russell was born in England, but spent much of her life in northern California. Her father was a Boston Brahmin, but made San Francisco his home, as he felt California had the potential for tremendous growth (and profit). Her mother was a British daughter of a rabbi. As a consequence, the family divided their time between Sussex and California. As a six-year-old, Russell survived the 1906 earthquake with only fleeting memories of the 1906 earthquake and ensuing fire. And as a 14-year-old, she survives the family car plunging off of a cliff near San Francisco (likely at Devil's Slide, in San Mateo County), while her parents and younger brother are killed in the accident. After recovering from her injuries, she goes to live in a house that she actually owns in Sussex, but is under the care of her aunt, who (along with her cousin) is abusive towards her. As an escape, she takes to reading while taking long hikes in the countryside, and it was while she was engrossed in a book that she literally trips over Sherlock Holmes, who has been studying the patterns of bees in some bushes.
|
