The Language of Bees: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
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- ISBN13: 9780553588347
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
For Mary Russell and her spouse, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad was especially sweet. There was even a mystery to solve—the unexplained disappearance of an entire colony of bees from one of Holmes’s beloved hives.
But the anticipated sweetness of their homecoming is quickly tempered by a galling memory from the past. Mary had met Damian Adler only once before, when the surrealist painter had been charged with—and exonerated from—murder. Now the troubled young man is enlisting the Holmeses’ help again, this time in a desperate search for his missing wife and child.
Mary has regularly experimental that there are many kinds of madness, and before this case yields its shattering solution she’ll come into treacherous contact with a honest number of them. From suicides at Stonehenge to the dark secrets of a young woman’s past on the streets of Shanghai, Mary will find herself on the trail of a killer more treacherous than any she’s ever faced—a killer Sherlock Holmes himself may be protecting for reasons near and dear to his heart.Amazon.com Review
Book Description
In a case that will push their relationship to the breaking point, Mary Russell must help back the greatest failure of her legendary spouse’s storied past—a painful and personal defeat that still has the power to sting…this time fatally.
For Mary Russell and her spouse, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad was especially sweet. There was even a mystery to solve–the unexplained disappearance of an entire colony of bees from one of Holmes’s beloved hives.
But the anticipated sweetness of their homecoming is quickly tempered by a galling memory from her spouse’s past. Mary had met Damian Adler only once before, when the promising surrealist painter had been charged with–and exonerated from–murder. Now the talented and troubled young man was enlisting their help again, this time in a desperate search for his missing wife and child.
When it comes to communal behavior, Russell has regularly experimental that there are many kinds of madness. And before this case yields its shattering solution, she’ll come into treacherous contact with a honest number of them. From suicides at Stonehenge to a bizarre religious cult, from the demimonde of the Café Royal at the heart of Bohemian London to the dark secrets of a young woman’s past on the streets of Shanghai, Russell will find herself on the trail of a killer more treacherous than any she’s ever faced–a killer Sherlock Holmes himself may be protecting for reasons near and dear to his heart.
Amazon Exclusive: Laurie R. King on The Language of Bees
As a writer, I court serendipity.
Another way to say that would be, as a writer, I really don’t know what I’m doing.
In a stand-alone novel it doesn’t much matter that I pursue my plot-line in a dark attic with a failing flashlight, because in the early drafts I simply place everything down, then spend the rewrite peeling away whatever makes no sense or isn’t absolutely necessary. And when I’m finished with the novel, I’m finished–with the book and with the characters.
A series novel is a different animal. What I wrote in 1993, I have to live with in 2008, even if I no longer have the faintest thought what I had in mind back then. Sometimes this makes ridiculously convoluted problems, and I spend hours and hours paging through to find what color a name’s eyes were or if I credited them with a certain skill, and I end up wishing I could just recall all copies of the earlier book and make people forget about that line on page 238. Additional times, well, I’d like to take credit for being such a genius planner, but as I said, I really don’t know what I’m doing.
But, some deep, distant, well-hidden part of my brain does, and when that Organizing Principle takes charge, things turn out in appealing ways.
Take my newest book, The Language of Bees. This, the ninth Russell and Holmes novel, is set in the summer of 1924, and its central character (apart from the series regulars) is a young Surrealist artist by the name of Damian Adler. And for persons readers who are up on their Conan Doyle, yes, it’s THAT Adler.
Back in 1994, I wrote a book called A Monstrous Regiment of Women, the second in the series. In one scene, Russell is trying to get away from Holmes for a while so she can reflect about her future lacking him looking over her shoulder. When a friend conveniently presents her with a drug-addled fiancé in need of help, Russell seizes the opportunity to shove the young man’s problems onto Holmes and send them both away. One of the weapons she uses to force Holmes into agreement is a reference to his long lost son:
“And if he were your son? Would you not want a name to try?” It was a dirty blow, low and unscrupulous and reasonably unforgivably wicked. Because, you see, he did have a son once, and a name had tried.
And this is pretty much the only appearance of this mythic entity, the son, despite queries and entreaties and speculations from readers. I could not even have said for certain why I inflicted the master detective with parenthood, additional than Russell’s need for a weapon strong enough to tough Holmes into obedience, combined with the feeling that this drug-addled young officer needed to have a deeper meaning for Holmes than just a nursing job.
But the Organizing Principle in the back of my mind knew why he was there.
The “lovely, lost son” was glimpsed in Monstrous Regiment so that fourteen years later, I could sit down to write The Language of Bees and craft a situation as significant for Holmes as the psychic trauma of the previous book had been for Russell. Locked Rooms forced Russell to confront a past she had hidden from herself. The Language of Bees gives Holmes a second chance to know the son he had lost.
(I should, perhaps, mention that this thought of Holmes having a son by Irene Adler–“The woman”–is not mine alone. W. S. Baring Gould, whose definitive biography of the master detective was recently updated by Leslie Klinger in The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, suggested the presence of a son. The boy, under the name Nero Wolfe, himself became a rather well-known detective.)
As soon as my mind dangled the thought of Holmes’ son returning, a world of possibilities blossomed: Where had the young man been? (perhaps… Shanghai?) Why come back now? (A wife disappeared, and a murder, and–what about a child!) And since one of the Conan Doyle tales refers to the art in Holmes’ blood (his grandmother’s brother was the artist Vernet) and since Irene Adler was an opera singer, why not make the son an artist–one of the Surrealists, just to place a twist in his relationship with the ultra-rational Holmes?
I’d like to say I had all this in mind back in 1995 when I had Mary Russell drop mention of Holmes’ son, but I prefer to save fiction for my novels.
And as I said at the beginning, as a writer, I court serendipity. I may not know what I’m doing, but it makes for a more exciting journey, getting there. –Laurie R. King
(Photo © Seth Affoumado)
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Even her lover Sherlock Holmes is as taken back as Mary Russell is when his alienated son from his first wife, Damien Adler, visits them as he never comes to see them. An illustrator Damien needs his father’s help as his wife Yolanda and their daughter have vanished lacking a trace. Holmes agrees to investigate the disappearance of his grandchild and daughter-in-law.
Meanwhile Holmes also is disturbed over the disappearance of one of his beehive colonies and plans to learn why so he can avoid a repetition. At the same time he works both cases, Mary investigates Damien, which leads her to his London flat and a druid cult the Children of Light whose troubling tome Testimony was illustrated by Damien.
Since Mary and Sherlock investigate separately, readers do not take that much of a look at the married couple. Still the tale line is quick-paced from the moment Damien arrives and never slows down enabling fans will delight in learning just who Holmes’ son is as elementary reader he is not reasonably a chip off the ancient logical block. As with the BEEKEEPER’S APPRENTICE, Laurie R. King provides an exciting brilliant suspense thriller that the Baker Street irregulars will appreciate even as the plot launches missiles at the mythos.
Harriet Klausner
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
If you like formidable young women then the character of Mary Russell won’t disappoint. Along with her now-older spouse Sherlock Holmes, Mary is in top form running around London and the rest of England trying to help solve a baffling mystery involving non-additional then Sherlock Holmes’ missing son and grand child! The son and grand child he didn’t know he had! The characters are rich in detail and you’ll find yourself believing you’re back in the London of the 1920’s. Also in top form are the characters of sherlock Holmes and brother Mycroft. All in one novel. A fantastic read!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
This book, right to Damien Adler’s surrealist philosophy, both thrills and maddens at the same time. The dark, brilliantly insane villain is the scariest since the original Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and the increasing danger and tension were enough to keep me turning pages until late into the night. But the shock of learning that, unlike King’s additional Mary Russell novels, this one is *not* perfect in itself was immensely frustrating. One can only hope that King is quicker than usual in producing the next book.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
An brilliant read. I never read any of Laurie King’s before. Very appealing mystery. You’ll delight in this especially if you keep bees.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I don’t know how long Laurie King, or the anonymous sender of the items, can continue to give us new tales about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, but I for one hope for a long time. These are absolutely fascinating to me, the character studies are wonderful.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5