Mary Russell
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Mary Russell is a fictional character in a book series by Laurie R. King. The daughter of a Jewish merchant and an American millionaire, Russell returns to Sussex, after the death of her parents and brother, where she becomes the partner to Sherlock Holmes. Mary Russell is an Oxford scholar of theology and chemistry.
All the novels are told in first-person retrospective from Mary Russell's point of view. King's introductions to each novel form part of an ongoing frame story about a mystery writer who is anonymously sent Mary Russell's memoirs in manuscript form and attempts to determine who sent them and why.
Books in the series
Descriptions partially taken from the Laurie R. King website
- The Beekeeper's Apprentice (1994) begins in 1915 as Mary Russell literally stumbles across the retired detective, who keeps an apiary. Holmes, astonished to meet someone who can match his own powers of observation and deduction, decides to teach her more about it before Mary goes to college. His training becomes vitally important when Russell is caught up in an old enemy's vendetta against Holmes.
- A Monstrous Regiment of Women takes place in the years just after World War I. Russell and Holmes investigate a new religious movement based on the idea of the "Sacred Feminine", whose wealthier followers are developing a tendency to die suddenly after willing their fortunes to the cause. A sub-plot leads up to the revelation that Holmes had another reason for cultivating Russell's acquaintance beyond being impressed by her detective talents.
- A Letter of Mary closely follows the events of Monstrous Regiment. A first-century manuscript that would turn Christianity on its ear, the death of a friend, and Mary Russell as the private secretary of a misogynist colonel form the events of A Letter of Mary. Russell and Holmes investigate the death of a friend who may have discovered a letter written by Mary Magdalene.
- The Moor takes the partnership out to Dartmoor, the location of original The Hound of the Baskervilles. A hound stalks Dartmoor by night, and Holmes calls Russell to the side of an old man from his past, Sabine Baring-Gould, the squire of Lew Trenchard.
- O Jerusalem revisits events mentioned in The Beekeeper's Apprentice in more detail. Working with two of Mycroft's agents, Muhammad and Ali, the partners seek out spies in post-WWI Palestine.
- Justice Hall Two old friends reappear, in decidedly different guise: the two Bedouin guides from O Jerusalem are in England, caught in a mesh of honor and justice and the death of a young nephew.
- The Game In the early days of 1924 Russell and Holmes are given an urgent task by his brother Mycroft: Find a British spy gone missing along India's northwest frontier, where men are dying and trouble is brewing. The spy's name? It is one Holmes knows from his sojourn in India long ago; one Russell knows from a book. It is Kimball O?Hara, known to the world by the name Rudyard Kipling called him, Kim.
- Locked Rooms Setting sail from their adventures in India during the spring of 1924, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes turn their faces toward San Francisco. Russell knows that the time has come to close up the house and business interests she inherited on the death of her family, ten years before. Little does she anticipate the complexity of events her past is built upon, the layers of trust and betrayal that are locked inside her memory. Only Holmes suspects what lies therein--and even he is not prepared for the danger that unfolds.
External Links
Laurie R. King's Homepage http://www.laurierking.com/Template:Lit-stub