#Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

[runilareads]

Mary Russell - Florence Pugh Sherlock Holmes - Paul McGann Dr. John Watson - Bradley Walsh Mycroft Holmes - Joe McGann Mrs. Hudson - Phoebe Nicholls Inspector Lestrade - Ed Speleers Patricia Donleavy - Tuppence Middleton

[scientistofdeduction]

I respect Sherlockians who Play the Game (live as though Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were real and treat the canon as true stories), and admire the commitment of those who hold to that no matter what. It’s a fun and very unique experience across all fandoms that I don’t see anywhere else.

But I did see a post about the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R King (which is good fun though not without some stuff that does deserve questioning). In that thread, one of the comments was from David Marcum, who does the MX Publishing’s massive collections of Holmes stories and who is one of the more serious who Play the Game. He linked a post where he talked about how he rationalizes the series with The Game—specifically how can one rationalize a Holmes who is in retirement marrying a young woman in her twenties.

You can read it here

Basically what I find interesting is that Marcum firstly adheres to Holmes’ supposed age in the Game, making him in his very late 60s in most of the Russell years, instead of his early 50s as suits the story (Holmes remarks to Russell that he was often assumed to be older due to Watson’s stories). A woman in her 20s with a man in her 50s will still raise eyebrows, especially as he met her as a teenager, and yet that’s not the same gap as 70 and 20. Likewise Russell has gone through a lot of life experience by the time any romantic moves are made; her and Holmes are on fairly even footing by then. (Do I still approve of the age gap? No, but then again maybe that’s just my personal preference.

But my bigger qualm with Marcum’s rationalizing the Russell thrillers within The Game is how he rationalizes it all. Russell is a woman who is sick in the head after her family’s death, becomes obsessive over Holmes (fairly directly in opposite to the text where she doesn’t care if he’s a neighbor or a myth, and berates him to his face for assuming her intelligence—point in her favor, I might add), and further descends into madness creating a romance between them in her mind, a life well lived with family.

Here’s hoping I’m not the only one who is a little disturbed by this—yes, the way to rationalize an intelligent woman holding her own with Holmes intellectually, romantically, and as a crime solver, is that she’s insane and disturbed and creepy. Yuck.

He notes that he’s on board with Holmes having romance with Irene Adler, which is fairly bonkers to me. I can read stories where they’ve had a romance, in fact, if memory serves, the two had something brief pre-Russell era in that canon. But I do not like the idea that Holmes cannot be romantic with a “fan made” character. An argument can be made that many Dan made characters are Mary Sues, or John Does, for Watson, as many find the good Doctor difficult to write (and I agree, he is, but that doesn’t always warrant a stand in when Watson would’ve suited the same character actions). But it’s strange that when the newcomer is a woman, she’s hated or interrogated so thoroughly, especially when Mary Russell is so strong a presence and definitely holds her own as a unique character and not just a stand in (even if Watson is a bit dim in her stories compared to canon, we can forgive that because he is so loved by everyone in the Russell texts).

Instead, if I were playing The Game, i would submit this (and I plan on writing a fic to challenge Marcum’s own little story):

Russell is the neighbor of semi-retired Holmes and their meeting is unchanged, he begins to tutor her and saves her in his own way, and she him. The events of Beekeepers and O Jerusalem take place fairly close to recorded, save a few alterations.

Holmes in retirement is living with Watson, as a romantic partnership. Russell discovers this early and although taken aback at first, comes around to it quickly. She creates the stories as fabrications to hide their romance, and with permission from H&W, creates the romantic relationship on paper between her and Holmes to disguise what would’ve been illegal and perhaps reputation ruining for the pair.

The three remain their own sort of family and the series progresses as published to continue that fabrication of the truth.

No mentally disturbed Russell, but a Russell who’s still strong and sane and perhaps at times cleverer than Holmes. No creepy stalker behavior by a girl, but the same in canon amazing woman we get to see grow up. Same partnership, just no romance.

I wonder if this solution wouldn’t occur to a canon purist who plays the game— a purist up until the point where they play a game of rationalizing a non-canonical work to fit their version of Holmes. Not saying that to be scathing, just if one is to entertain the possibility of modern pastiche fitting into The Game, it would be fun to be a little more creative.

I wonder if queer H&W doesn’t slot into their version of the game, and so a clever woman protecting that deep love wouldn’t either. But it seems a far better solution to approach the Russell texts under The Game than Marcum’s rationalization. Again, I’d want for some more creativity than his version.

But then, My Holmes, when I finally write him, is queer, and I enjoyed the Russell series, so it wasn’t a difficult solution.

[bargainsleuthbooks]

#TheBeekeepersApprentice #MaryRussellandSherlockHolmes #1) by #LaurieRKing #BookReview #SherlockHolmes #Pastiche

I've gone back to the beginning of one of my favorite #SherlockHolmes pastiche. #TheBeekeepersApprentice teams a young woman with the aging sleuth and it works well. #LaurieRKing #maryrussellandsherlockholmes #maryrussell #bookreview #audiobook

Long retired, Sherlock Holmes quietly pursues his study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. He never imagines he would encounter anyone whose intellect matched his own, much less an audacious teenage girl with a penchant for detection. Miss Mary Russell becomes Holmes’s pupil and quickly hones her talent for deduction, disguises and danger. But when an elusive villain enters the picture,…

[bangbangwhoa]

books I’ve read in 2024 📖 no. 029

The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R. King

“Resentments, unsettled scores, and long-standing acrimony were one thing. What I had not anticipated was being met by the sound of a break-action shotgun snapping into place behind me.”

[sparklywaistcoat]

Am reading The Lantern's Dance, the latest Russell-and-Holmes by Laurie R. King, and am delighted to find that King has painted Holmes as being very respectful and courteous toward children. The child in question is Holmes's granddaughter, but still. It's very good to see.

[old-type-40]

FYI... For those who are fans of the Russell-Holmes series of novels this is a worthy addition even though much of the story involves events in the far past. And it is 30 years since The Beekeeper's Apprentice came out!

[genderfluidbf]

ok so i started rereading the beekeeper's apprentice and there were some bits that had me mildly secondhand embarassed with how, ig, pretentiously silly they were, but i think foundationally this is a good book. but, even as i reflect upon the pretentious silliness, this book starts with mary as a 15 yr old girl, and what was i if not silly and pretentious at 15? i must cut her some slack. ms laurie r king's portrayal of holmes continues to be delightful

[inamemyselficarus]

All Sherlock Holmes-es are good Sherlock Holmes-es, but I must confess that I've flown through the first 5 books of Laurie R. King's Russell and Holmes Series and I think I'm more than half in love with this one specifically.

[azazel-dreams]

Mary Russell's War by Laurie R King

Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

The Mary Russell series in reading order:

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice 

A Monstrous Regiment of Women

A Letter of Mary

The Moor 

O Jerusalem 

Justice Hall 

The Game 

Locked Rooms 

The Language of Bees 

The God of the Hive 

Beekeeping for Beginners (novella)

Mrs Hudson’s Case (novella)

Pirate King 

Garment of Shadows 

Dreaming Spies 

Mary Russell's War (short stories)

The Marriage of Mary Russell (novella)

The Murder of Mary Russell

Island of the Mad 

Riviera Gold 

Castle Shade 

[ravens-cove]

[runilareads]

Book Review: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King (Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes, 1)

Title: The Beekeeper's Apprentice Author: Laurie R. King Series: Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes, 1 Release Date: January 1994 Publisher: Bantam Rating: 4 stars

Favourite character: Sherlock Holmes Least favourite character: N/A (spoiler reasons)

Mini-Review: I enjoyed this, although I'd say it's definitely on the medium to slow side with pacing. The writing was beautiful and I loved the characters, but I did find certain parts to almost be reminiscent of grooming. Different times, but this was still written in the 90s so just be aware of that if you plan on reading it.

Fan Cast: Mary Russell - Florence Pugh Sherlock Holmes - Paul McGann Dr. John Watson - Bradley Walsh Mycroft Holmes - Joe McGann Mrs. Hudson - Phoebe Nicholls Inspector Lestrade - Ed Speleers Patricia Donleavy - Tuppence Middleton

[bookwyrmshoard]

The Lantern’s Dance, by Laurie R. King

A dizzying, delightful kaleidoscope of a novel

I was very excited to read The Lantern’s Dance, the first new Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes mystery since 2021’s Castle Shade. Once started, I could hardly put it down, staying up until 2:30 in the morning to reach the denouement. Like The Murder of Mary Russell, the novel alternates between past and present narratives, slowly revealing hidden connections that surprised and enchanted me.

Readers familiar with the Sherlock Holmes canon may recall that in “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter,” Holmes divulges that his grandmother was “the sister of Vernet, the French artist”—probably Horace Vernert (though the Vernet family produced a number of artists through the generations.) From this single quotation and a few other tidbits about Holmes’s origins, Laurie R. King has woven an adventure involving an antique zoetrope, a coded journal, family secrets, missing jewels, and a thirst for revenge several generations in the making. Told from three points of view (Mary Russell, Holmes, and the journal’s author), The Lantern’s Dance is a dizzying, delightful kaleidoscope of a novel, where each new revelation paints the known facts in a different light.

The book begins with Russell and Holmes arriving at Holmes’s son Damian’s home in France, only to discover that the Adlers (Damian, his fiancée Dr. Aileen Hemmings, and his young daughter Estelle) have fled. On questioning the neighbors, Holmes and Mary learn that several foreign men, possibly Indians, have been seeking Damian for several weeks—around the same time that he received a trio of crates and a trunk once belonging to the artist Vernet. A break-in the previous night by a man dressed as a lascar (an Indian sailor) has sent the Adler family into hiding. Holmes immediately sets out to find and protect them, while Russell, hobbled by a sprained ankle, remains at the Adler home to explore the crates and see what can be learned locally. Discovering an old journal written in an obscure and fiendishly difficult code, she sets about decoding it. As she reads, Mary begins to suspect the journal is connected not only to the Vernet family, but to the present-day mystery and perhaps even to Holmes himself.

If I have any small quibble about the book, it’s that I would have liked to see more of the present-day Adlers, particularly the child. The short glimpses of her are as charming as her appearances in The God of the Hive, but far too few. I also would have enjoyed more interactions between Damian and Aileen, and between Damian and his father… though their few interchanges are handled well, and I appreciate the hints of growth in their relationship with one another. Still, this is first and foremost a Mary Russell novel; while we do spend time with Holmes, the focus leans toward both Mary and the journal.

The chapters rotate between the three points of view, with the journal chapters often followed by Mary’s thoughts on what she has translated thus far, and her own attempts to find out more about the men seeking Damian. This sometimes makes for slightly uneven pacing, but on the whole, King build the tension well. My only other quibble is that in one of the plotlines, the danger is overcome a little too easily and the tension fizzles out. But this is not, strictly speaking, a murder mystery; it’s more a series of puzzles both past and present, and the reader has all the fun of figuring out not only the solutions (who are the men seeking Damian, and why? Who is the mysterious journal writer?) but also how they may be connected. I did in fact manage to solve the majority of the interlocking puzzles myself, but I missed a few crucial pieces here and there, and therefore I thoroughly enjoyed the final denouement.

I recommend The Lantern’s Dance to all of Mary Russell’s many fans—you won’t be disappointed! But if you’ve never met Russell or Laurie King’s iteration of Holmes before, you should really start with the first book in the series, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and follow that up with (at a minimum) the short story “The Marriage of Mary Russell” and the two-part mystery contained in The Language of Bees and The God of the Hive; the last two give necessary background on Damian, Estelle (also known as Stella), and Aileen. But honestly, I urge you to read the entire series in order; it’s one of my favorite mystery series of all time, and the order actually does matter.

Challenges: NetGalley & Edelweiss Challenge 2024; COYER Unwind (2024), Chapter 1; COYER Readathon (Read a book from a friend’s list)

Review originally published on my blog, The Bookwyrm's Hoard.

FTC disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher.  All opinions are entirely my own.

[bargainsleuthbooks]

Back to the Garden by #LaurieRKing + $1.99 on Kindle + Book Review #NetGalley #ARCReview #PoliceProcedural #HistoricalFiction #Mystery #BookReview

Great #policeprocedural on sale on #Kindle right now from one of my favorite authors, #LaurieRKing. #BacktotheGarden is an excellent dual timeline mystery. Get it now! Link in the bio. #kindledeals #bookreview #bookstagram #instabooks #historicalfiction

Right now, you can snag this book on Kindle for only $1.99. Book review and link to sale below! From Goodreads: “A magnificent house, vast formal gardens, a golden family that shaped California, and a colorful past filled with now-famous artists: the Gardener Estate was a twentieth-century Eden. And now, just as the Estate is preparing to move into a new future, restoration work on some of its…

[muatyland]

Recensione "La sposa di Sherlock Holmes: Una lettera di Maria Maddalena" Mary Russel e Sherlock Holmes Vol. 3 di Laure R. King

Agosto 1923. La quiete di casa Holmes, nel Sussex, viene turbata quando Dorothy Ruskin, un’archeologa di ritorno dalla Terra Santa, arriva portando una scatola finemente intarsiata con all’interno il frammento di un antico papiro. Di lì a poco, la signorina Ruskin muore in un incidente stradale che Holmes e Mary dimostrano essere in realtà un omicidio. Ma qual è il movente? È forse colpa del…

[sparklywaistcoat]

A very merry Unbirthday to me!

[oathbreaker-oathkeeper]

So I’ve been reading Mary Russell’s War, which is a collection of short stories in the Russell and Holmes universe.

Which, if you don’t know (you probably don’t), is a series of books in which 55 year old Sherlock Holmes takes a 15 year old girl (Mary Russell) as an apprentice, and subsequently ends up marrying her a handful of years later. Yes, there is a 40 year age difference.

And I have just learned that apparently this book series was at one point in talks to become a tv show - and I just can’t imagine how that would play out on screen. That age difference is already so weird in the books, but there is no way they could actually put a teenager on screen playing opposite a man in his 50s. I can only assume they would be aging her up and aging him down?