My best friend told me that I had to read The Beekeeper's Apprentice. No, really, I had to read it. My future happiness depended upon it! Well, okay. I always trust her judgement, especially on mysteries, so I picked it up. And couldn't put it down. A caveat: the premise could strike you as a bit hokey--14 year old Mary Russell encounters 50-something, now retired Sherlock Holmes on the downs of Sussex and begins a lifelong detecting partnership--until you see how Ms. King's expert handling has created a premiere 'literary mystery' series.
Imagine Dorothy L. Sayers meets Conan Doyle. King's obvious love for Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novels, as well as the mythical Holmes figure, is evident, but it doesn't keep her from writing an extraordinary, compelling, amusing and smart mystery all her own. Mary Russell's 'voice' is unique, strong, complex and amusing. Like Sayers' Harriet Vane, Russell is a whole person in her own right, matched with an equally complex and fascinating detecting partner, but King gives Russell more breadth and depth than Sayers ever gave Harriet.
The series is now at eight (8) novels, and it's worth reading them in order, as the relationship of the main characters grows and evolves. The actual mysteries are quite good, though some are better than others, but every story is literate, witty, and evocative of the early 20th-century world. They encounter famous and literary characters, but not in a contrived fashion, and familiar Holmes' characters--Mrs. Hudson, Dr. Watson and Mycroft Holmes in particular--are fleshed out and given new, three-dimensional life.
If you like your mysteries very smart, well-written, amusing and thought-provoking, you can't go wrong with Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series.
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