Mary Russell walked into my life with the first line of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and took over. At the time, I had little knowledge of the Great War, England in the Twenties, or Sherlock Holmes, but that didn’t seem to matter to her, she just waited (graciously stifling her impatience) for me to catch up.
Fourteen books later, I have learned a great deal about Russell, Holmes, and their world. I have learned even more about myself and my world, since a central raison d’etre of reading history, even fictional history, is that it is a mirror, reflecting unexpected sides of our times and ourselves. Politics, women’s rights, religious expression, governmental oppression–all these and more wander through the Russell stories, so that although they are primarily, as Graham Greene called his books, “entertainments,” they also have the real-life grit and dimension that a crime novel demands.
But mostly, I enjoy the Russells because they’re fun, for the writer and (I am led to believe) for the reader. I hope you agree.
Click on any book cover to learn more.
For a chronology of the Russell & Holmes stories, click here.
Island of the Mad
A June summer’s evening, on the Sussex Downs, in 1925. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are strolling across their orchard when the telephone rings: an old friend’s beloved aunt has failed to return following a supervised outing from Bedlam. After the previous few weeks—with a bloody murder, a terrible loss, and startling revelations about Holmes—Russell is feeling a bit unbalanced herself. The last thing she wants is to deal with the mad, and yet, she can’t say no.
Mary Russell's War
And other stories of suspense
The Murder of Mary Russell
(2016)
The key to Russell’s sacrifice lies in Mrs Hudson’s past, and to uncover the crime, a frantic Sherlock Holmes must put aside his anguish and push deep into his housekeeper’s secrets, to a time before her disguise was assumed, before her crimes were buried away. There is death here, and murder, and trust betrayed. And nothing will ever be the same.
The Marriage of Mary Russell
(2016)
Laurie R. King takes readers way back in her bestselling series with this exclusive ebook short story, as Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes embark upon the riskiest adventure of their partnership: their wedding.
Dreaming Spies
(2015)
In 1924, Russell & Holmes are on their way from India to California when they are swept into a case for Japan’s Prince Regent, involving blackmail, imperial secrets, and delicate international relations. The case takes them from one spring to the next, across two oceans and into the Bodleian Library, where the secrets are just beginning.
Mary's Christmas
(2014)
It begins one winter’s evening in the early Twenties when the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are seated by their fire, sharing stories about the unexplored portions of their past.
The Mary Russell Companion
(2014)
Original writing, a collection of Russell-themed media, selected historical research, pictures, and countless Russellisms fill this large ebook.
Garment of Shadows
(2012)
Russell and Holmes have traveled the world since their 1915 meeting on the Sussex Downs. Now they find themselves in Morocco. Although it takes some time before Russell knows quite where, since she wakes in a strange city with no memory, in unfamiliar clothes, and with blood on her hands–and to make matters more interesting, there seems to be a war on. Holmes, meanwhile, is swanning around in the Atlas Mountains, ducking bullets, happily oblivious to both the war and his missing amnesiac wife. Just another day in the life of Russell & Holmes.
Pirate King
(2011)
In this eleventh adventure for the intrepid Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King takes readers into the frenetic world of silent films, where the pirates are real and the shooting isn’t all done with cameras.
Beekeeping for Beginners
(2011)
The meeting between Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes—from his point of view. (Also available in print as an extra in the US paperback of Pirate King.)
The God of the Hive
(2010)
Russell and Holmes have worked together to solve the most perplexing of cases. Now, The God of the Hive picks up where The Language of Beesleft off. Chased by those who want them dead, chasing answers to deadly mysteries, the consequences of what they find will circle the globe, and involve a man with a curious identity and a dangerous past. With the God of London’s hive watching them, it will take more than deduction if they ever want to see each other alive again.
The Language of Bees
(2009)
Returning to summertime Sussex, Russell and Holmes anticipate problems with a beehive gone mad, but little anticipate what–and who–awaits them on their arrival. Bohemian artists, religious fanatics, and a thinned-down Mycroft: will wonders never cease?
Locked Rooms
(2005)
(A Booksense Pick)
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.
The Game
(2004)
This New York Times bestseller features the world’s greatest detective — and her husband. Mary Russell and her partner, Sherlock Holmes, are setting off for the wilds of India, jousting with maharajas and British spymasters alike as they search for a missing figure from an earlier age of colonial spycraft.
Justice Hall
(2002)
(A Booksense Choice)
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.
O Jerusalem
(1999)
Mycroft Holmes has a little job that needs doing, in 1919 Palestine, where an unfinished war is about to blow up and Russell finds that life as a Bedouin is not all strong coffee and candied almonds.
The Moor
(1998)
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.
A Letter of Mary
(1997)
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.
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
(1995)
(Nero Award Winner)
Russell, just twenty-one, meets a charismatic feminist mystic in London and faces a choice about the future.
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
(1994)
(Agatha nominee; ALA notable book; 100 favorite books of the IMBA)
The book that begins the adventure: In 1915, young Mary Russell meets Sherlock Holmes on the Sussex Downs, and becomes his apprentice-in-crime.
A Chronology of the Russell Memoirs
The Russell Memoirs—which her community of readers call the Kanon (in parallel to “the Canon” of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories)—include novels, novellas, and short stories. In order of publication, they are:
- The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994)
- A Monstrous Regiment of Women (1995)
- A Letter of Mary (1997)
- The Moor (1998)
- O Jerusalem (1999)
- Justice Hall (2002)
- The Game (2004)
- Locked Rooms (2005)
- The Language of Bees (2009)
- The God of the Hive (2010)
- Pirate King (2011)
- Garment of Shadows (2012)
- Dreaming Spies (2015)
- The Murder of Mary Russell (2016)
- Island of the Mad (2018)
Short stories and novellas (now collected in Mary Russell’s War)
Mrs Hudson’s Case (1997)
A Venomous Death (2009)
My Story (2009)
Birth of a Green Man (2010)
A Case in Correspondence (2010)
Beekeeping for Beginners (2011)
Mary’s Christmas (2014)
Mary Russell’s War (2015)
The Marriage of Mary Russell (2016)
Stately Holmes (2016)
Internal chronology and # publication order
Before 1915:
The Murder of Mary Russell (#14) contains back-story, from 1855 to 1881, for Mrs Hudson and a young Sherlock Holmes.
Locked Rooms (#8) contains Mary Russell’s events in 1906 and 1914.
“Mary’s Christmas” is from 1910
“Mary Russell’s War” is young Mary Russell’s 1914-1915 journal.
1915 to the present:
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (#1) opens in April 1915 and covers the four years of Russell’s apprenticeship, ending in August, 1919.
Beekeeping for Beginners begins at that same April, 1915 meeting, telling the story largely from Sherlock Holmes’ point of view. It ends shortly after the first Zeppelin bombardment of London, May 31, 1915.
Mrs Hudson’s Case is set in October, 1918.
O Jerusalem (#5) covers a segment of the time spanned by BEEK, although it was published out of sequence so as to tie in with JUST. Its dates are December 1918 to early February, 1919.
A Monstrous Regiment of Women (#2) starts on Boxing Day, December 26, 1920, when Russell is about to turn 21, and ends in early February, 1921 (with after-notes that reach forward some months).
(The long gap in the Memoirs, the thirty months from February, 1921 to August, 1923, is a time that clearly contains much of private concern to Miss Russell. Stories from that time include “The Marriage of Mary Russell” in 1921, “Birth of a Green Man” from the early 1920s, and the 1923 case “A Venomous Death”.)
A Letter of Mary (#3) takes place from mid-August to early September, 1923.
The Moor (#4) starts towards the end of September, 1923, and ends in early November.
Justice Hall (#6) covers from Guy Fawkes Day (November 5) until December 21, 1923, with an epilogue five days later.
The Game (#7) begins January 1, 1924 and ends in early March 1924.
[Russell and Holmes are in Japan for three weeks, in Dreaming Spies—# 13]
Locked Rooms (#8) is set from May to early June, 1924.
[The Art of Detection, a novel not generally included in the Russell Memoirs, includes a June, 1924 case Holmes had in San Francisco, while Russell was seeing to family business in Southern California. Her own events during this time may see future publication.]
The Language of Bees (#9) covers a scant three weeks, from August 10 to August 30, 1924.
God of the Hive (#10), being a continuation of Language of Bees, picks up in August 30 to finish the case on September 9, 1924 (with an epilogue dated Oct. 31, 1924).
Pirate King (#11) takes place in November 1924, roughly the 6th through the 30th.
Garment of Shadows (#12) covers the closing weeks of 1924, and sees January dawn in 1925.
Dreaming Spies (#13) is set partly after The Game in 1924 and finishes in spring 1925
The Murder of Mary Russell (#14) has portions set in the 19th century, and the rest in May, 1925.
Island of the Mad (#15) takes place in June, 1925.
***
“My Story” and “A Case in Correspondence” describe events in 1992, when Russell is 92 and Holmes a fairly astonishing—and remarkably spry—131 years of age. For those who have trouble believing this, one must point out that the Times of London, the paper of record in the British world, has yet to publish a Sherlock Holmes or Mary Russell obituary.