Laurie R. King: Three Mary Russell Novels

I first discovered Laurie R. King's Mary Russell historical Holmesian mysteries a few years ago, and devoured most of them in a few reading binges. After reading the earlier Russell/Holmes books in rapid succession, however, the difficulties I encountered in slogging through The Language of Bees, which was quite slow-paced in comparison to the preceding novels, led me to leave off reading the series for a while.

Returning to the series with The God of the Hive rekindled my interest, and as there had been several more books in the series published since then, I decided to see how far my reawakened enthusiasm took me, and I am now fully caught up and eagerly waiting to get my electronic hands on the recently published Dreaming Spies.

King's The God of the Hive is a continuation of The Language of Bees, in which we discovered the existence of Damien Adler, Holmes' son by Irene Adler, an artist with PTSD from The Great War and a history of drug abuse, who has been living in Shanghai. His wife, Yolanthe, has an unsavoury past which has brought brought them both, and their daughter Estelle, into the orbit of an occult cult - The Children of Light - led by Thomas Brothets, a charismatic Aleister Crowley wannabe. The cult, its leader, and the Adler family have relocated to England, and now Damien's wife and daughter are missing. The Language of Bees followed Holmes' and Russell's adventures following on the discovery of the murder of Yolanthe, and ended up in the aftermath of a magickal ceremony (in which human sacrifice was intended to be part of the ritual) in the Orkney Islands with the words "to be continued."

As The God of the Hive opens, there are warrants out for the arrest of Holmes and Russell, and Mycroft is being held prisoner in an unknown location by persons unknown. Russell, with Holmes' grandaughter Estelle, is trying to make her way south in the company of the aviator she hired to get to the Orkneys in The Language of Bees, while avoiding arrest and the murderous intentions of Brothers' henchmen. Holmes, with Damien - wounded during a confrontation with Brothets - is trying the same thing, aided by a sympathic fisherman and later an even more sympathetic female doctor Holmes more-or-less kidnaps in order to get medical aid for Damien.

Holmes and his group end up in Denmark, Mary and hers in the care of a strange forest-dwelling hermit after their plane crashes during the flight south. And we discover that all of the business with Damien, his family, amd the cult has been a very small part of a very large plot aimed directly at Mycroft.

God of the Hive was quite fast-paced and held my interest well. And it delivered a strong conclusion that made the entire two-volume story arc worthwhile in the end.

The volume that followed, The Pirate King, was a delight for me to read, being set amidst a company of film actors who are making a film about a company of film actors making a film of Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. Shot on location, as it were, in Portugal and Morocco, there's a great deal of funny business about show business - showing that things really don't change much in the performing arts despite advances in technology - and a very interesting brush with real pirates.

The novel ends with our heroes Sherlock and Russell in Morocco, unknowing about to embark on a much more important and harrowing adventure.

Garment of Shadows opens with an injured and amnesiac young woman that readers will instantly recognise as Mary Russell, alone but recently tended, waking in an unfamiliar room in what she will soon discover to be the Moroccan city of Fez. Realising that soldiers are about to enter the house, her first instinct is to grab everything useful in her room and flee before she can be found.

A switch in viewpoint to Holmes gives the reader much necessary background about the political situation in Morocco, which will bear heavily on the story. Holmes has been visiting his maternal fifth cousin, Morocco's Resident General, Maréchal Louis Hubert Lyautey while Russell finishes up her work with the film. While visiting Lyautey, Holmes meets former friend and ally, Ali Hazr. Hazr is one of Mycroft's agents but seems to have aligned himself with self-declared Emir of the Republic of Rif, Mohammed bin Abd-el-Krim, the leader of one of the many factions in the current struggle for political control of Morocco, its mineral resources, and its strategic position at the southern side of entrance of the Mediterranean (the northern side being British-controlled Gibraltar).

As the plot unfolds, Ali and Holmes have two important tasks to undertake - arranging a secret meeting between Abd-el-Krim and Lyautey, and finding Ali's brother Mahmoud, last known to have been in the company of the also missing Mary Russell.

In Garment of Shadows, King gives us not only a fine Russell/Holmes adventure in which Russell takes the lead and demonstrates her many skills and competences, but a well researched account of an early attempt to throw off European colonialism in Northern Africa. Naturally, I enjoyed both aspects of the novel, although some readers may be less enthusiastic about Russell and Holmes sharing the stage with the politics of the imperialist project and the struggle to overthrow it.