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SusannaG

SusannaG - Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady

Just another GR refugee.  Other than that, I had a stroke in 2004, and read almost anything I can get my hands on, though I have a particular weakness for history, mystery, and historical fiction.

Currently reading

Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition
Paul Watson
Progress: 6 %
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
Ed Yong
Progress: 40 %
Wizard's First Rule
Terry Goodkind
Progress: 49 %
Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant
Tracy Borman
Progress: 14 %
Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life
Helen Czerski
Progress: 20 %
The Hanover Square Affair
Ashley Gardner
Progress: 10 %
Medieval Tastes: Food, Cooking, and the Table (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History)
Beth Archer Brombert, Massimo Montanari
Progress: 10 %
Scars of Independence: America's Violent Birth
Holger Hoock
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari
Progress: 9 %
Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years
John Guy
Progress: 20/512 pages

The Murder of Mary Russell

The Murder of Mary Russell: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes - Laurie R. King

My ARC courtesy of Random House/Net Galley - much thanks!  My opinions are my own.

 

The Murder of Mary Russell - well, it's a title to get your attention, isn't it?  But perhaps this novel might more fairly be described as "The Backstory of Mrs. Hudson."  Because she didn't walk into 221 Baker St. in 1880 without a past, which takes up at least half of this book.

 

We open with Mary Russell answering the door to find a man who claims to be "Samuel Hudson," Mrs. Hudson's son, come to visit her all the way from Australia.  Mary is instantly on guard, though she can't entirely say why.

 

Later that day, Mrs. Hudson comes home to find Mary missing, her heirloom china broken, much blood on the floor, and Mary's throwing knife impaled in the side of the wall.

 

And then we get the history of Mrs. Hudson, from her parents meeting in the 1850s onward.  It is only in the second half of the novel that we are mostly back in 1925.

 

I'd recommend refreshing one's memory of the story "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott," from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, as it comes up here, and in important ways.

 

It was an interesting novel, though not quite the one I was expecting.  And it may be the novel in this series with the least Mary Russell in it.  It kept my attention, however.  I'll be interested to see where this series goes from here.