The first pick for my library book club came in with a whimper. Overall, we (self included) didn’t really like this book. This was an interesting endeavor because King takes Sherlock’s Holmes out of retirement, and back into the fray, with the addition of the plucky Mary Russell, a whip smart teenager who befriends Holmes and keeps him on his toes. In addition to Holmes there is the familiar cast of characters: Mrs. Hudson, Watson, and Mycroft. Watson is more secondary as Russell serves to […]
Move over Sherlock Holmes
3.5 stars. This was a good, solid mystery book. In a way, it’s Sherlock Holmes fanfiction reclaiming the original series for women (in a similar way that Elementary the tv series functions). Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories are classics for a reason, but the casual sexism is undeniable and for a modern reader like myself, it can be hard to swallow, “the woman” Irene Adler or no. The Beekeeper’s apprentice examines what it would be like if an older Sherlock had a female protege. Holmes meets […]
This could have turned out very, very badly, but it didn’t! It was so much fun!
I had so much fun reading this, and it was much better than I thought it was going to be. It totally charmed me. It’s a good thing Laurie King is such a good writer, and is so good at creating atmosphere and characters you can love, because she was in real danger of stepping in that quicksand trap some writers get stuck and die in, where they take something truly beloved and either try to insert themselves, or completely mangle the original thing that […]

