“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…

The Mary Russell Companion is many things to many people: research tool (What year did “Mrs Hudson’s Case” take place?); source of amusement (Fernando Pessoa, pirate!); extended, free-form Laurie R. King novel (gasp: the  Memoirs, fiction? Never!).  Tirade against accusers..?   A Protest: Russell and the Mary Sues Since the Memoirs first began to appear,…

Tomorrow, Picador books publishes the shiny new Twentieth Anniversary edition of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, with a new foreword by yours truly (author, or editor?? Only Mary Russell knows for sure…)  To mark the day, I’m giving you a sample of the annotated Beekeeper’s Apprentice from my own electronic volume, The Mary Russell Companion. When I was…

We are celebrating two decades of  The Beekeeper’s Apprentice with a brand new Companion volume, which answers many questions and, I fear, raises others regarding Miss Russell and her world.  Much of the material is either newly written or published for the first time.  For example, several short stories that were written for other purposes… A…