The last two Russell & Holmes novels—A Language of Bees and The God of the Hive—were fairly serious crime novels, their light-hearted moments few and far between.  When I agreed to do a third series novel in a row, I agreed, but with the proviso that this one would be fun.  A romp.  A farce,…

I, and Russell in her turn, found myself on the road to Cintra, where the Portuguese royal family lived, and the nobility’s castles sprang up like mushrooms. (“…then loaded upon a fleet of decorative if rickety wooden carts and aimed at the hill under whose side Cintra sheltered.”) Cintra itself is a highly decorative town,…

I arrived in Lisbon towards the end of March, when it was still half winter, (“I was thinking, perhaps, the botanical gardens?”) and set out to explore the city. Lisbon is built on hills—correction: Lisbon IS hills. Residents plan their routes not on direct point-to-point, but following the contours around, or taking one of the…

Very well: I had my place (Lisbon) and my local character—and what a character Fernando Pessoa turned out to be. (“a poetical individual.  It being 1924, and the weedy, artistic look being all the fashion even in this distant enclave, there were several melancholics who fitted the description.”) First of all, as Mary Russell describes…