- Hardcover: 307 pages
- Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition edition (Jan 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312169345
- ISBN-13: 978-0312169343
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,009,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Long-time fans of Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, might think that their favourite sleuth met his fate at the hands of Dr Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Anyone who believes that, however, obviously hasn't read Laurie R King's delightful series featuring Holmes and his wife (!), Mary Russell. In The Beekeeper's Apprentice Holmes succumbs to the Oxford scholar's charms; now, in The Moor, fourth in the series, Holmes and Russell are summoned to Devonshire to solve a tin miner's mysterious death. Lonely Dartmoor provides plenty of opportunities for King to both relate the haunting legends of that part of the world and offer some amusing revisions to one of Holmes's most famous cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Though Holmes purists might resent the liberties taken with their hero, readers in search of a strong female protagonist, some fascinating local history, and spooky ambience will enjoy The Moor. --Amazon.com
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
‘There’s no resisting the appeal of King’s thrillingly moody scenes of Dartmoor and her lovely evocations of its legends.’
New York Times Book Review
‘King not only provides a suitably generous array of things that go bump in the night, but suplies an explanation for all the skullduggery… that’s at least as ingenious and plausible as Conan Doyle’s own.’
Booklist.
‘The great marvel of King’s series is that she’s managed to preserve the integrity of Holmes’s character and yet somehow conjure up a woman astute, edgy and compelling enough to be the partner of his mind as well as his heart’
Washington Post
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The fourth in Laurie King's series featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, this one returns to Dartmoor, the setting of the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel, 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. And, like in its predecessor there are tales of a ghostly hound out on the moors, this time accompanying an equally ghostly carriage.
This series are always well worth a read. Laurie King brings carries off three significant tricks, each alone being worth the price of admission: characterisation of her leads, local and contemporary colour, and a great plot.
In terms of the first, both Holmes and Russell are depicted as somewhat prickly characters, unwilling to suffer fools gladly, and each with their own areas of interest and expertise. Russell works well by herself, but sparks of all kinds fly when her husband is around (being narrated by Russell, we never see Holmes by himself). In this book, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould also features strongly, and occasionally view with the leads for our attention. Given he is virtually bedridden, this is no small feat.
The depiction of different kinds of characters and their environments helps bring the story to life. Between those who live on the moor and those who live in the village, lords of the manor and their servants and so forth, we have no opportunity to mistake where and when the book is set. Two scenes which didn't really advance the plot but were wonderful are Russell's meeting with the local witch (as the moor dwellers call her), Elizabeth Chase, and a scene set in the pub where the locals spend the evening singing to entertain themselves - with its attendant rivalry between those who live in the village and those who live on the moor.
Russell's growing understanding of the moor as a place and a presence in the life of its inhabitants also works very well.
And lastly the plot: it's a cracker! I'm not going to give anything more away, but the final outcome was not what I had expected at the beginning of the book.
In summary: what are you waiting for?
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
For those who worried that Laurie King was losing her touch, and that the once-sparkling partnership of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes was in danger of becoming dull, worry no more. THE MOOR, despite its superficially derivative premise, is a fresh, original, and thoroughly engaging mystery featuring Russell and Holmes at their intellectual and investigative best. King has done her homework here and it shows -- she not only shows the reader the brooding vistas of Dartmoor, she transports them there.
Also not to be missed is the eccentric, prickly, but always fascinating character of the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, a real individual in more ways than one. Again King's scrupulous research comes into play here, as she weaves fact and fiction into a seamless whole.
Many of King's former weaknesses in crafting a mystery -- such as failing to introduce us to the villain until the very end of the story -- have been diligently amended here; and, as always, there are enough tips of the hat to (and, occasionally, sly but affectionate pokes at) the Conan-Doyle "canon" to tickle the fancy of Sherlockians. Holmes is at his ascerbic, brilliant best, and Russell shows a human, fallible side that makes her all the more likeable in the end.
This is, in my opinion, the best Russell book since THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE, and more than worth the price of admission.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Leave all your preconceptions behind if you are a Conan Doyle fan and enter Laurie King's interpretation of Sherlock Holmes' new career as partner to Mary Russell. This is a superb series of novels to which I hesitate to refer to as pastiche. Each novel in the series, of which THE MOOR is the fourth, is self contained and absorbs the reader immediately. Having first discovered King through her modern day series of novels featuring Kate Martinelli, I hesitated before staring the Russell/Holmes serires, having not been a reader of the ouvre. However, hooked from the beginning, I can thoroughly recommend both the series, which begins with THE BEEKEEPERS APPRENTICE, and THE MOOR in particular, which bears homage to Coan Doyles' work, but also bears the singularly successful hallmark of Laurie King. Recognition is highly deserved. This is one of the USA's best kept secrets and past titles are already difficult to come by in their UK editions. If you like genuine mystery with wonderful prose and story-telling - discover now.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Well written, enjoyable Holmes pastiche
I read Beekeeper's Apprentice with some apprehension as authors picking up historical detectives and producing follow-on series is seldom convincing, but Laurie King has produced... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Cat
Hounding the Baskervilles
Laurie R. King has founded a whole genre writing new Sherlock Holmes mysteries with a female protagonist in the lead. Read more
Published 6 months ago by J. Scott-mandeville
yheMoor
A very interesting book in the mary Russell detective stories. A twist on the original Sherlock Holmes book The hound of the Baskervilles. Read more
Published 8 months ago by sandy c
...the footprints of a gigantic hound...
This entry in the Mary Russell Series is set on Dartmooor, and the moor is central to the story, brooding over it as the moor broods over the surrounding landscape. Read more
Published on 22 Jun 2009 by LML
Brilliant and engrossing
This - the 4th in the Mary Russell series - is enormously clever as it combines real historical characters with fictional ones - it is this sort of device that brings a touch of... Read more
Published on 16 July 2008 by A. Hope
Holmes returns to the moor with his wife to solve a mystery
In The Moor by Laurie R. King, her fourth pairing of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, the author has the husband and wife team return to the moors made famous in Arthur Conan... Read more
Published on 5 Feb 2006 by F. Orion Pozo
ACD would turn in his grave
Like many sherlockian fans, I've read everything that ACD wrote, I've also, thanks to Amazon.co.uk, bought & read many interesting "continuations" of the Watson case files. Read more
Published on 1 Sep 2003
Rhymes with "Bore"
Ms. King's Mary Russell series started out with a bang when she revived Sherlock Holmes in THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE. Read more
Published on 25 Aug 1999
Holmes is back!
As a great fan of Sherlock Holmes, I could not resist buying this book. Although the book was off to a slow start, I soon became immersed in the story. Read more
Published on 25 Aug 1999
Well written, but exceedingly slow story
The Moor, another adventure of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie King, gets off to a slow start and never really picks up. Read more
Published on 18 July 1999
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