Murder in the Mission House

[bibliogramma]

A Monstrous Regiment of Women, Laurie R. King

This is the second of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mysteries to be published, and I enjoyed it quite as completely as I did the first.

In this novel, Russell, about to finish with university and just on the verge of reaching her majority and gaining control of her fortune, meets an old friend who has become involved with a charismatic woman preacher and social reformer, Margery Childe. Russell, who has taken degree in theology (and in chemistry, but that is much less relevant here) is at first interested in Childe's profoundly feminist but theologically naive interpretation of Scripture, but following an attempt on her friend's life, and the discovery of a series of deaths associated with Childe's organisation, the detective in her takes over.

The Russell/Holmes relationship heats up somewhat - well, quite a bit toward the end - and while I'm not entirely certain that I would have written that aspect of the story the same way the King did, still it worked for me. However, after reading this novel, which is the second in publication order, I read somewhere that O Jerusalem is actually the next novel in chronological order, so I must read that next. Possibly it will fill in the gaps that made a few notes in the advancing Russell/Holmes relation seem not quite in key.