Ebooks
Vanishing shorts
Two weeks from today, on Feb 1, a number of my e-short stories will be coming down, vanishing, going underground (except, of course, if they’re already on your reader.) These stories won’t be for sale again until Random House publishes my collection of Russell & Holmes tales in October (as an ebook, though possibly, eventually,…
Read MoreRussell’s War
Last year on the centenary of the Great War’s beginnings,I began posting young Mary Russell’s War Journal. Her weekly reflections about the War, her drive to do something more than just be a fourteen year-old girl, (her mother is raising money for the British air force) and her suspicions about German spies weave in and…
Read MoreMary’s Christmas, in time for Christmas
So, I fought my way through storm and flood and fallen branches (yeah, it is indeed raining here in drought-land, and raining hard—really hard) risking life and limb and wet shoes JUST FOR YOU, making my way to Bookshop Santa Cruz (and back) where I signed a stack of the now-in-print short story, “Mary’s Christmas”…
Read MoreLRK, Sherlockian?
When I first started writing the Russell books, I took great care to assert that these were not Sherlock Holmes stories, that they were about Mary Russell, with Holmes a supporting actor. Which they are, clearly. However… As I’ve mellowed, I have become more interested in the character of Holmes, curious about how this man…
Read MoreShort story theologian
We’ve put up two new things into the LRK electrical world, both having to do with a weeklong Writer in Residence I did some years ago at Hanover College, Indiana. The first is a lengthy meditation on how the concept of “vocation” appears in my novels, written by Hanover professor Michael Duffy. It carries the…
Read MoreMatters Unspoken? (My blushes!)
In the twenty years since The Beekeeper’s Apprentice introduced Mary Russell to the world, many questions have been raised about the good lady, and about her relationship with Sherlock Holmes, her religious beliefs, her Oxford college, what kind of car she drives—and just where on the Sussex Downs is that house of hers, anyway? In a fervent…
Read MoreA Case in Companionship (4)
In a discussion of how Laurie King came to publish Miss Russell’s Memoirs, “A Case in Correspondence” came to light. This series of postcards, letters, and newspaper clippings culminates with a postcard written by Miss Russell to her new literary agent, Laurie R. King, in 1992: a card that led to the eventual publication of…
Read MoreA Case in Companionship (3)
“A Case in Correspondence” is a series of twenty postcards, letters, and newspaper clippings dating to 1992. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, the first Russell Memoir, was published two years later. This collection of correspondence, along with the previously published “My Story”, explain how Laurie R. King came to have Miss Russell’s multi-volume autobiography–although neither story explains…
Read MoreA Case in Companionship (2)
A frequent question in Laurie R. King’s email and events is, “How come you’re taking credit for Mary Russell’s Memoirs?” “My Story” began the explanation, and “A Case in Correspondence” continues it, with postcards, letters, and newspaper clippings dating to 1992. It would be 18 years before The God of the Hive saw publication, but…
Read MoreThe backstory: A Case in Companionship (1)
For the question of how Laurie King came to publish Miss Russell’s Memoirs, “A Case in Correspondence” is essential reading: a series of postcards, letters, and newspaper clippings dating to 1992. Along with “My Story” (see yesterday’s blog post) the two additions to the Russell Memoirs go far to explain the eventual publication of the…
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