by Laurie R. King
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by Laurie R. King
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by Laurie R. King
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by Laurie R. King
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by Laurie R. King
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Review
'A novel which challenges the cliches of history' Independent 'Laurie King's idea... is beguiling' Ham & High (of A Monstrous Regiment of Women) 'King's novel is civilized, ingenious and engrossing' Literary Review 'An inventive variation on the Sherlock Holmes myth' Time Out 'Crime fiction's most unlikely but utterly credible romance... Laurie King is the most interesting writer to emerge on the American crime fiction front in recent years' Val McDermid (of The Beekeeper's Apprentice)
Oxford theologian Mary Russell, now living quietly in Sussex with her husband Sherlock Holmes, is thunderstruck with the explosive potential of a document her old acquaintance, amateur archeologist Dorothy Ruskin, brings her from a dig in Palestine: a letter from one Mariam of Magdala identifying herself as an apostle of Jesus. What would the Church say to the possibility of a woman having been a full-fledged apostle? What might the letter do for our understanding of Mary Magdalene? And what to make of the persistently unvoiced parallels between Russell and her storied progenitor? Soon after leaving Russell and Holmes, Dorothy Ruskin is killed in a traffic accident her hosts prove was murder as they fall into a scramble for Miss Ruskin's meager possessions - and into a long, keen disappointment for fans of King's distinctively feminist Sherlockian pastiches (A Monstrous Regiment of Women, 1995, etc.). Plotting has never been King's strong suit (as it never was Conan Doyle's), but, here, her episodic story - Russell and Holmes going as spies into the houses of suspects whose personalities pale before the richness of the inspectors' before allowing Holmes to produce one of his most gratuitous final coups - is surprisingly unworthy of her richly suggestive premise. Fans will find all of King's accustomed literacy and empathy on display. But, like Amanda Cross, she seems bent this time on crossing the line from the detective story to the discursive essay. Even Holmes is muffled. (Kirkus Reviews)
Oxford theologian Mary Russell, now living quietly in Sussex with her husband Sherlock Holmes, is thunderstruck with the explosive potential of a document her old acquaintance, amateur archeologist Dorothy Ruskin, brings her from a dig in Palestine: a letter from one Mariam of Magdala identifying herself as an apostle of Jesus. What would the Church say to the possibility of a woman having been a full-fledged apostle? What might the letter do for our understanding of Mary Magdalene? And what to make of the persistently unvoiced parallels between Russell and her storied progenitor? Soon after leaving Russell and Holmes, Dorothy Ruskin is killed in a traffic accident her hosts prove was murder as they fall into a scramble for Miss Ruskin's meager possessions - and into a long, keen disappointment for fans of King's distinctively feminist Sherlockian pastiches (A Monstrous Regiment of Women, 1995, etc.). Plotting has never been King's strong suit (as it never was Conan Doyle's), but, here, her episodic story - Russell and Holmes going as spies into the houses of suspects whose personalities pale before the richness of the inspectors' before allowing Holmes to produce one of his most gratuitous final coups - is surprisingly unworthy of her richly suggestive premise. Fans will find all of King's accustomed literacy and empathy on display. But, like Amanda Cross, she seems bent this time on crossing the line from the detective story to the discursive essay. Even Holmes is muffled. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Intelligent, complex and richly imagined, A Letter of Mary is the third in the award-winning Laurie King series chronicling the unlikely partnership between the misogynistic Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, the young woman he takes on as his apprentice. August, 1923. The quiet in the Holmes household in Sussex is shaken when Dorothy Ruskin, an amateur archaeologist from the Holy Land, appears with an exquisite inlaid box containing a scrap of ancient writing. Miss Ruskin soon dies in a traffic accident that Holmes and Mary prove was murder. But what was the motivation? Was it the little inlaid box holding the manuscript? Or the woman's involvement in the volatile politics of the Holy Land? Or could it have been the manuscript itself -- a letter seemingly written by Mary Magdalene that contains a biblical bombshell. Beautifully written and steeped in authentic period detail, A Letter of Mary is a fascinating and intelligent read.
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