One of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century
“As every good mystery reader knows, when Sherlock Holmes quit detection, he retired to the South Downs to keep bees. What he wanted was the quiet life. What he got, according to Laurie King, was a gawky but fiercely intelligent apprentice. Not only that, but this apprentice was a young woman….For my money, Laurie King is the most interesting writer to emerge on the American crime fiction front in recent years. Intelligent, humane, gifted with both talent and insight, she is an unalloyed pleasure to read.”
—Manchester Evening News—Val McDermid
From Anna Quindlen’s How Reading Changed my Life: The 10 mystery novels I’d most like to find in a summer rental:
- An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (PD James)
- Gaudy Night (Dorothy Sayers)
- The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (Laurie R. King)
- Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)
- Get Shorty (Elmore Leonard)
- Dancers in Mourning (Margery Allingham)
- The Way Through the Woods (Colin Dexter)
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- Brat Farrer (Josephine Tey)
- The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (John leCarre)
“Imagine Sherlock Holmes retiring to a Sussex farm but keeping his hand in by occasionally investigating cases for the British government…. Then picture Holmes, walking on the Sussex Downs, literally stumbling across a 15 year-old girl whose brilliant intellect, caustic wit, egotistical personality, and gift for detail rival Holmes’ own.”
—Booklist
“King’s novel is civilized, ingenious and engrossing. Best of all, it has heart.”
—Times Literary Review
BOOK magazine (Jan 2004) ranked the “sidekicks” of mystery fiction, from Koko and Yum Yum the cats (Lilian Jackson Braun) to “Mouse” Alexander (Walter Mosley). The winner, with 40 points, was Hawk (Robert B. Parker)—and who would dare argue with Hawk? But second with 30 points was… “Sherlock Holmes, husband and mentor to Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell.”