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Title: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0-553-57165-6 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 July, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.54 (133 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Highly Recommend....Lovely, textured writing
Comment: What a great find! Laurie R. King has a wonderfully nuanced voice. I'll admit I usually enjoy first person narratives with female protagonists. Mary Russell is one of the great protagonists.
It's refreshing how Laurie R. King emphasizes Mary Russell's rational, logical intellect. Kudos. Sherlock Holmes has met his counterpart in Mary Russell. I enjoyed the growing relationship between Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes (Please note this story is not a romance.). I particularly enjoyed the format of the novel with a number of cases, rather than just one. That format effectively charts the development of the characters.
However, in the story, Holmes was portrayed as a brilliant and empathetic person. I didn't think it realistic that his intellectual arrogance would be tempered by a high degree of empathy. In my experience, that's not very common. Maybe he shows understated empathy. King does drop enough clues late in the book for the reader to piece together the identity of the villain. But the hints are deliberate and do not detract from the storytelling.
I've read the second book in the series, A Monstrous Regiment of Women and liked it almost as well as this one. This novel, set for the most part in Britain, uses British language and spelling. If you like Agatha Christie's mysteries you will like Laurie R. King's.
Thanks Ms. King for adding a fresh, feminist perspective to the the Sherlock Holmes canon!
Rating: 4
Summary: Audacious, ambitious, and almost flawless. 4.8 stars
Comment: Many, many people have tried to continue the Sherlock Holmes legend with pastiches and unauthorized sequels. I have read a fair number of them, and most of them are not very successful, even the ones that try the hardest to adhere to the 'canon', or display the author's tireless researches into the minutiae of Victorian/Edwardian London.
So what can you expect of a book audacious enough to saddle Holmes with a 15-year-old American female apprentice/partner/potential love interest? I mean, talk about chutzpah!
But you can't argue with success. This is far and away the best continuation of the Holmes legend I have ever read. It leaves Gardner's "The Seven Percent Solution," for example, in the dust. In fact, to tell the truth, the writing is mostly better than Arthur Conan Doyle's. It is, in fact, the best mystery novel I have read since about a year ago when I went through all of Elizabeth George's stuff.
This novel is hitting on all eight cylinders from the moment Mary Russell, her nose in a book, stumbles across Holmes (literally) on the Sussex downs. I refuse to spoil the scene by paraphrasing it - it's just too perfect. Master and apprentice immediately recognize each other: "When the teacher is ready, the student will appear."
The author unhurriedly follows the Russell/Holmes duo through some smaller adventures into the major plot of the novel, which is correct strategy. The characterization and writing are superb throughout.
This is a feminist historical novel in the best and most successful sense. This is to say that it is not like the many less successful versions in which the heroine is forced to spend all her time arguing about what a woman should or should not be doing, as, for example, in all of Anne Perry's well-intentioned, readable, intelligent, but somewhat preachy works. King doesn't bother with that. Instead, she merely has Russell demonstrate on each page that she is a worthy partner of Holmes, THE partner, in fact, who is indispensible to him. When, in a moment of weakness, Holmes proposes to leave her out of the action, she lays down the law:
"My dear Holmes, I am going to pretend you did not say that. I am going to walk in your garden and admire the flowers for approximately ten minutes. When I come back in we will begin this conversation anew, and unless you wish to divorce yourself from me entirely, the idea of protecting little Mary Russell will never enter your head."
I hope one does not have to be Holmes or Russell to deduce that I am quite enthusiastic about this book!
All right, so why didn't I give it five stars? Well, it is very hard to get that fifth star out of me. For me, three stars is OK, four stars is very good indeed, and five stars is virtually flawless. There were a few flaws in this volume which I finally, regretfully, decided that I couldn't overlook. I think the plot is questionable in the last hundred pages. The Major Villain does too many things just to tease Holmes, and there are a couple plot elements that go nowhere. Also there is some "talking killer" stuff, although you could easily claim that this is necessary to adhere to the spirit of the original, since in volumes like "A Study in Scarlet" fully half the book is taken up by the killer's recitation! The chess stuff should have been left out or at least rewritten with the advice of someone who can play better than King seems to. If this sounds like nitpicky stuff, maybe you're right! The real truth of the matter is that in my rating system this is a 4.8 star book. I'm glad I paid good money for it, I will re-read it, and I intend to read the other volumes in the series as well.
Rating: 5
Summary: "Its a Good Read!"
Comment: I am ashamed to admit that I bought this book several years ago and only recently picked it up to read. What a waste of years! This is a delightful read. Engaging characterizations, great heroine and thank God, a wonderful treatment of Holmes.
I'm scouring the internet now for anything else she has written.
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Title: A Monstrous Regiment of Women by LAURIE R. KING ISBN: 0553574566 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 December, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0553577808 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 05 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Moor by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0553579525 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 05 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: O Jerusalem by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0553581058 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 06 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Justice Hall by Laurie R. King ISBN: 0553581112 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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