The Mary Russell Companion
William King, Sherlock Holmes, and the Dalai Lama?
One of the fun things I put into the Mary Russell Companion was a document written by my husband’s father, William King, regarding an intriguing possible overlap between the family of Laurie King and that of Mary Russell. William King laid the first telephone line into Lhasa; Sherlock Holmes, during the “Great Hiatus” following his…
Read MoreA Green Companion
Among other things, The Mary Russell Companion offers back-story for the dramatis personae of the Memoirs, including the quizzical Mr Goodman of The God of the Hive. Not that we can ever know quite how the man came to be as he was, but a previously unpublished short-short story, “The Birth of a Green Man”, appears…
Read MoreThe Russell & Holmes house?
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 MoreRussell: a Mary Sue?
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,…
Read MoreThe Annotated Beekeeper
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…
Read MoreA Venomous Companion
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…
Read MoreDoyle’s locked rooms?
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 MorePensive Nights & Laborious Days
Sherlock Holmes admits to Watson that his book on beekeeping is “the fruit of pensive nights and laborious days”. Now, I would not dare to compare my own modest efforts with those of The Master, however, The Mary Russell Companion (an ebook) is indeed the result of pensive evenings and hard-working daylight hours. Many of…
Read MoreThis week I’ve…
This week I: – Sent Dreaming Spies in to my editor, waited a day, and received back word that she adores it, that it’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever written, and that perhaps more to the point, she’s going to send me a check. – Finished my parts of The Mary Russell Companion, coming to…
Read MoreA Russell Companion!
Due May 1: The Mary Russell (e-)Companion: all manner of information and tidbits concerning Miss Russell’s Memoirs, from What does their house look like? to What’s a copper beech? Yes, there’s even a chapter on her sex life. The book page is here. And I will over to you my humble and immediate apologies…
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