Mary Russell, meet Sherlock Holmes

Team LRK has a new video for you, based on a piece of prose you may recognize:

“I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes…”

38 Comments

  1. Lillian on November 23, 2015 at 9:15 am

    PLEASE have a print copy of MARY RUSSELL’s WAR published. I have friends who don’t own electronic devices. It’s assumed in this day and age that electronic devices are affordable for ALL. NOT SO.

  2. Pat Hathaway on November 23, 2015 at 9:23 am

    Very well done! I don’t’ know who the narrator is,but she does a fine job. Loved the pictures too. Thanks for sharing.

  3. Diane Hendricksen on November 23, 2015 at 10:19 am

    Excellent! The pictures helped me visualize the countryside.

  4. Nora on November 23, 2015 at 11:16 am

    Loved it!!!

  5. sandy schrag on November 23, 2015 at 11:50 am

    loved it! I recommend full length movies of all the books !

  6. Linda Hay on November 23, 2015 at 12:03 pm

    Thank you, thank you! A perfect birthday present for me. Loved the integration of drawing and photo.

    Spent early October walking the South Downs in all directions from Jevingtion. Pure heaven!

    I would retire to a cottage there myself, had I the wherewithal!

  7. Sheila on November 23, 2015 at 12:50 pm

    The narrator is Jenny Sterlin, the woman who reads all the Mary Russell books for the audio books. She is absolutely spectacular at the books.

  8. Laura Stratton on November 23, 2015 at 12:53 pm

    Thank You for theDelightful Video & Narration. And Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

  9. Joanne on November 23, 2015 at 7:50 pm

    Why did you stop?!!! More, please.

  10. greg on December 28, 2015 at 11:14 am

    i just finished beekeepers appt (audio version), & i put on order another mary russell audio. i had gone on A.C.D. kick a couple of years ago & since then i discovered, via joe abercrombies’ tbe blade itself series, audio books. which i now love, given the fitting narrator, of course. btw, steven pacey is the best by far! yet the woman who reads beekeepers apprentice is very good. it takes the right sound & effort as well as various unknown talents/skill to do, what people such as the narrator of beekeepers apprentice has done. it’s a pleasure to enjoy the reading she has done for the sake of others who wish to enjoy story telling as it was at one time, the only way to get the story. i love it & look forward to more

  11. Sarah on May 14, 2016 at 10:03 pm

    Does anyone know where Mary Russel is from? Could u tell me?THX!!

  12. Len Barcousky on May 23, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    How old is Holmes when he and Mary meet in 1915? About 55 and born in 1860? (Which would make him younger than Baring-Gould’s Holmes.

    • Laurie King on May 29, 2016 at 4:59 pm

      Holmes was born January 6, 1861. According to King, that is.
      Laurie

      • Jennifer B on September 17, 2016 at 4:59 pm

        If Holmes was born in 1861, how is he still alive and kicking in “My Story” and “A Case in Correspondence” in 1992?

      • Jennifer B on September 17, 2016 at 6:42 pm

        If Holmes was born in 1861, how is he still alive and kicking in 1992 in My Story and A Case in Correspondence?

        • Laurie King on October 3, 2016 at 10:00 am

          This is one of the Great Mysteries of the Russell memoirs.

          • M on March 30, 2018 at 12:52 pm

            That one got me too. Im currently listening to Mary Russell’s War, and I just passed that part. It makes no sense, and is so ridiculous I might have to skip this section, just to maintain my sanity.
            I LOVE the Russell/Holmes stories, but I just can’t get past this bizarre part. Holmes is what, 131 years old, then?
            Nope. For me, it doesn’t add to the magic of the stories, but is just too much.



          • June Tooley on July 12, 2022 at 9:19 am

            Glad I could find your answer to this question which has been bugging me, but…it’s no real answer at all! The stories set in 1992 are fun but I must say they are upsetting because of the unreal premise that SH is still alive.



      • David Rosoff on October 28, 2018 at 3:29 am

        Laurie,
        As wonderful as your Mary Russell stories may be (I just discovered they exist & haven’t had the chance to read them yet), you must agree that the true expert is Arthur Conan Doyle. He clearly states (in “His Last Bow”, his chronologically last Holmes adventure) that, on 2 August 1914, Holmes is a “man of sixty”. That means Holmes had to have been born in 1854 at the latest. How do you reconcile this?

        • Laurie King on October 28, 2018 at 10:46 am

          Hi David–yes, I claim that Holmes was born in 1861, based among other things on the chronology of one of the few stories that gives dates, “The Gloria Scott”. Without doing a cut-and-paste of an entire article here (which is in the collection Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes, if you’re interested) basically I conclude: “Either chronology would mean that when Holmes “retired” from Baker Street in 1903 to keep bees on the Downs, he was not yet forty, so that his Baker Street career was that of a man in his twenties and thirties. That this perception jars with our image of the man is not because of any conflict with Conan Doyle’s words, but is rather due largely to the original Sidney Paget drawings, which invariably show a man in his middle years—being, after all, modeled on Paget’s older brother.”

          As for the discrepancy with the Last Bow description, Holmes is heavily in disguise there. Would not one of his goals to have appeared less of a threat to Von Bork–that is, older?

          Yours in the game,

          Laurie

          • David Rosoff on October 29, 2018 at 3:55 am

            Laurie,
            I tried to look up “Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes” & couldn’t find anything about it anywhere, not even in your website’s full list of books. I saw “The Mary Russell Companion”, & several books of stories inspired by the Sherlock Holmes canon, & even “The Grand Game” about Sherlockian scholarship, but not your book of Sherlock Holmes essays. Where can I find it?



          • Laurie King on October 29, 2018 at 9:58 am

            Sorry, David, I should have given you the page. It’s on my web site here: https://laurierking.com/books/ebooks/

            Bookshop Santa Cruz may still have a print version left, but it’ll probably be easier in e-book format.

            L.



  13. Fred Knauke on November 3, 2016 at 12:23 am

    Where does The Marriage of Mary Russell fit into the other stories?

  14. Vickie on April 6, 2018 at 1:09 pm

    Are the titles “Mrs. Hudson’s Case” , “The Marriage, & Murder of Mary Russell” individual books or are they books of stories. I can not find “Mrs. Hudon’s Case” on audio CD format. Help.

    • Laurie King on April 6, 2018 at 1:22 pm

      THE MURDER OF MARY RUSSELL is a novel, available in audio.
      “The Marriage of Mary Russell” is a novella, available in audio.
      “Mrs. Hudson’s Case” is a short story that (along with “Marriage of Mary Russell”) is found in the book-length collection called MARY RUSSELL’S WAR. That has yet to be made into a separate audio book, although two of the stories are in audio.
      All those are on the web site: LaurieRKing.com/books
      As for CDs rather than downloads, I know they’ve made them, but I also know that CDs tend to be bought primarily by libraries so are hard to find commercially. You could write Recorded Books and ask, I suppose.

      • Vickie Benak on April 7, 2018 at 2:36 pm

        Well, my library oers only ages titles of Ms. King’s books. I have used their Overdrive to listen to a couple on line I wish, that I had discovered Ms. Kings books long before. The only ones left for me to listen o is “The Murder of Mary Russell, & The Marriage o Mary Russell.” I’m looking forward to starting on her other books. I am so excited. Thank you Laurie for giving us a chance to spend some of our lives with your stories. Vickie

    • Laurie King on April 6, 2018 at 1:51 pm

      Actually, Mary Russell’s War is in audio, sorry.

  15. Emily on November 1, 2018 at 2:07 am

    Apologies if I’m wrong or this has been mentioned before, but in the foreword of Stately Holmes you mention ACDs The Mazarin Stone is a Christmas tale – isn’t it The Blue Carbuncle?

    • Laurie King on November 1, 2018 at 8:57 am

      Oh good heavens, has that typo persisted? Sorry! Yes of course it’s the Blue Carbuncle, and pardon me while I go shout at my publishers…

      Laurie

    • Laurie King on November 1, 2018 at 11:57 am

      Hi Emily, so I checked and that should have been corrected. Could you tell me which edition you’re reading, UK or US–and what printing it is? (That’s the countdown numbering on the back of the title page, that reads 10 9 8 7 etc.)

      Or if you’re reading an e-book, is it Kindle, Nook, Kobo..?

      Thanks again.

      Laurie

      • Emily on November 2, 2018 at 4:33 am

        I borrowed it from my local library: It’s the US printing, 2017, Allison & Busby, printed in arrangement with Bantam books.

        The number merely reads: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ?

        • Laurie King on November 2, 2018 at 9:16 am

          Allison & Busby are UK, but since that’s a first edition I’m going to assume that they’ve corrected it in later printings. And apologize again here for my brain freeze that caused me to put the wrong gem title into the forward….

          • Emily on November 2, 2018 at 6:07 pm

            Okay, good assumption!

            Now that’s out of the way haha, I’d like to ‘fan-girl’ and tell you that I love the ‘domestic’ ‘everyday’ scenes in your Russell books.

            Russell getting a cold during The Moor, walking while reading, answering correspondence etc. It really serves to cast a sort of beauty on our own every day life.

            It’s like a reflection: We read about extraordinary lives, and some how that extra-ordinariness bounces back and shows us what we overlooked in our own lives.

            Excuse the poetry! But thank you for its catalyst 🙂



  16. Laurie King on November 2, 2018 at 6:09 pm

    Poetry in a head cold, that’s Russell.
    L.

  17. Caron M LeMay on June 26, 2020 at 3:20 pm

    THIS BOOK is a gamechanger within the genre.
    Love Jenny Sterlin’s narration.
    Be sure to read O, Jerusalem.

    • Laurie King on June 26, 2020 at 3:26 pm

      Thanks, Caron!

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