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…

“My Story”, a short story included in its entirety in The Mary Russell Companion, is the first part of the tale of how Laurie King came to have (and publish) the Russell Memoirs as novels. This excerpt (episode 9) also makes reference to a dwelling that will play a large role in next February’s Dreaming…

In the twenty years since the publication of the first Mary Russell memoir, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, many questions have been raised about that mysterious and previously unknown partner of Sherlock Holmes.  Not the least of those questions has been: So why on earth are the books published as Laurie King novels?  Now, The Mary Russell Companion endeavors…

An interesting aspect of  having a long-lived and highly detailed series of stories about a set of characters is how those characters take on lives of their own in the eyes of their readers–even if they don’t belong to an already established world such as that of Sherlock Holmes.  Circles within circles take form: Laurie King writes…

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…