Sunday, August 23, 2009

Book Review: The Language of Bees

Title: The Language of Bees (Mary Russell Novels)
Author: Laurie R. King
Rating: ****
Tags: mystery, series, mary russell, sherlock holmes, mycroft holmes, cults

Laurie King is one of my favorite writers. For one thing, she had the audacity to take a beloved character, Sherlock Holmes, and use him and make it work. But she isn't perfect. I wasn't fond of the The Game, the volume in this series set in India, and this one I didn't like as well as some of ther others in the series. Perhaps I'm finding the villain who is part of an evil cult to be a bit cliched by now.

However, it does present Holmes with a previously unknown son, his son by Irene Adler. The son suffered gruesomely in WWI and fell apart. Holmes and Russell learned of his existence in 1919, when he was still a drug addict, and then he disappeared and could not be found. Now, in 1924, he shows up again, an sober artist whose Chinese wife has disappeared. It begins to look as though she was involved with a dangerous religious nut.

Worth reading, but would recommend reading the other books in the series first.


Publication Bantam (2009), Edition: 1ST, Hardcover, 448 pages
Publication date 2009
ISBN 0553804545 / 9780553804546

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