About the Author

Laurie King is a third-generation native of San Francisco, but since her marriage to an Anglo-Indian professor she has lived briefly on five continents. She and her husband have two children. They live mostly in California

Reviews

'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 'Brilliantly written' T. J. Binyon, Evening Standard (of The Birth of a New Moon)

YA‘Mary Russell, the apprentice to Sherlock Holmes first encountered in The Beekeeper's Apprentice (St. Martins, 1994), has established her own regime in and around Oxford just after World War I. Still drawn to Holmes, but seeking her own identity and the furtherance of women's rights, she pursues her studies as well as a case concerning wealthy young women and their spiritual mentor, Margery Childe. While captivated and encouraged by Margery's sermons and good works, Mary can't help wondering why several of these women have recently passed away, leaving much of their estates to Margery's association. She alternately seeks out and rebuffs Holmes. Mary has lost none of the spark and intelligence as well as individualism that so intrigued her mentor in the first book. Readers learn much of the condition of women, especially as the few remaining men return home from the war, and become aware of the class system and unequal social conditions of early 20th-century England, while engaged in a thoroughly entertaining romp through the meaner streets of London. A delight, and a worthy sequel.‘Susan H. Woodcock, King's Park Library, Burke, VA

King "found" this sequel to The Beekeeper's Apprentice (St. Martin's, 1994) in a trunk, presumably the property of narrator Mary Russell. Mary once again tells of her partnership with Sherlock Holmes, a juxtaposition of her youth (age almost 21) and Holmes's advanced middle age (59). Using disguise, guile, and ruse, Mary investigates murders in the inner clique of feminist preacher Margery Childe. Holmes assists, but the focus here is on Mary. The semiconvoluted, finely crafted late-Victorian prose is buttressed with exacting mots justes and surrounded by a nicely re-created 1920s London. A unique look at Holmes; for all collections.