Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

One of the preeminent figures in the realm of mystery fiction, New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King is perhaps most widely celebrated for her works featuring the amiable, if often contentious, partnership between Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. From the collection Mary Russell's War, "Mary's Christmas" and "Stately Holmes" deliver the author's signature blend of narrative mastery and historical detail, while shining light on previously unexplored corners of the Russell-Holmes universe.

In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles onto him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern, twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. They are soon called to Wales to help Scotland Yard find the kidnapped daughter of an American senator, a case of international significance with clues that dip deep into Holmes's past. Full of brilliant deduction, disguises, and danger, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, the first book of the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mysteries, is remarkably beguiling . This program includes a preface read by the author.

It is 1921 and Mary Russell--Sherlock Holmes's brilliant apprentice, now an Oxford graduate with a degree in theology--is on the verge of acquiring a sizable inheritance. Independent at last, with a passion for divinity and detective work, her most baffling mystery may now involve Holmes and the burgeoning of a deeper affection between herself and the retired detective. Russell's attentions turn to the New Temple of God and its leader, Margery Childe, a charismatic suffragette and a mystic, whose draw on the young theology scholar is irresistible. But when four bluestockings from the Temple turn up dead shortly after changing their wills, could sins of a capital nature be afoot? Holmes and Russell investigate, as their partnership takes a surprising turn in A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King.

Laurie R. King takes readers way back in her bestselling series with this exclusive ebook short story, as Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes embark upon the riskiest adventure of their partnership: their wedding. Though she cannot entirely discount the effects of the head injuries they were both suffering at the time, Mary Russell is delighted by Sherlock Holmes's proposal of marriage. After all, they have become partners-in-crime, and she has recently come into her inheritance: what remains but to confirm the union with her mentor-turned-partner with the piece of paper? Russell's pragmatic side tells her to head straight to the registry office-until Holmes surprises her with a sentimental wish to be married in the chapel of his ancestral manor. There's just the small issue of ownership: the house is not exactly his, and he is most definitely not welcome there. Of course, such obstacles have never deterred Sherlock Holmes before, and they certainly won't keep him from concocting an elaborate scheme to evade angry dogs and armed butlers-all in the name of wedded bliss.

It is 1923. Mary Russell Holmes and her husband, the retired Sherlock Holmes, are enjoying the summer together on their Sussex estate when they are visited by an old friend, Miss Dorothy Ruskin, an archeologist just returned from Palestine. She leaves in their protection an ancient manuscript which seems to hint at the possibility that Mary Magdalene was an apostle--an artifact certain to stir up a storm of biblical proportions in the Christian establishment. When Ruskin is suddenly killed in a tragic accident, Russell and Holmes find themselves on the trail of a fiendishly clever murderer. A Letter of Mary is brimming with political intrigue, theological arcana, and brilliant Holmesian deductions.

In the eerie wasteland of Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes summons his devoted wife and partner, Mary Russell, from her studies at Oxford to aid the investigation of a death and some disturbing phenomena of a decidedly supernatural origin. Through the mists of the moor there have been sightings of a spectral coach made of bones carrying a woman long-ago accused of murdering her husband--and of a hound with a single glowing eye. Returning to the scene of one of his most celebrated cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes and Russell investigate a mystery darker and more unforgiving than the moors themselves, in Laurie R. King's The Moor.

O Jerusalem takes place in 1918, shortly after The Beekeeper's Apprentice. Coming out of retirement, an aging Sherlock Holmes has traveled to Palestine with his 19-year-old partner, Mary Russell. There, disguised as ragged Bedouins, they embark on a dangerous mission. If they fail, the holy city will surely go up in flames. With her unerring flair for the dramatic, Laurie R. King packs this novel with bloodcurdling adventure, clever disguises, and layers of intrigue. Jenny Sterlin's superb voicing of the prickly Holmes and the fiercely intelligent Russell captures every nuance of their unconventional relationship.

Only hours after Holmes and Russell return from solving one riddle on the moor, another knocks on their front door - literally. It's a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since. But it's not until Holmes and Russell arrive at Justice Hall, a home of unearthly perfection set in a garden modeled on Paradise, that they fully understand the irony echoed in the family motto, Justicia fortitudo mea est: "Righteousness is my strength." A trail of ominous clues leads Holmes and Russell from an English hamlet to fashionable Paris to the wild prairie of the New World. But as the moment of reckoning approaches, will justice be done - or have they been lured straight into an elusive killer's perfectly baited trap?

It's only the second day of 1924, but Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, find themselves embroiled in intrigue. It starts with a New Year's visit from Holmes's brother Mycroft, who comes bearing a strange package containing the papers of an English spy named Kimball O'Hara-the same Kimball known to the world through Kipling's famed Kim. Inexplicably, O'Hara withdrew from the "Great Game" of espionage and now he has just as inexplicably disappeared. When Russell discovers Holmes's own secret friendship with the spy, she knows the die is cast: she will accompany her husband to India to search for the missing operative. But Russell soon learns that in this faraway and exotic land, it's often impossible to tell friend from foe-and that some games aren't played for fun but for the highest stakes of all, life and death.

Although other writers have tried, no one has matched King's ability to capture the allure of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. En route to San Francisco to settle her family's estate, Mary Russell, in the company of husband Sherlock Holmes, falls prey to troubling dreams-and even more troubling behavior. In 1906, when Mary was six, the city was devastated by a catastrophic earthquake. For years Mary has insisted she lived elsewhere at the time. But Holmes knows better. Soon it is clear that whatever unpleasantness Mary wanted to forget hasn't forgotten her. A series of mysterious deaths leads Russell and Holmes from the winding streets of Chinatown to the unspoken secrets of a parent's marriage and the tragic "accident" that Mary alone survived. What Russell discovers is that even a forgotten past never dies, and it can kill again

King's beloved sleuth Mary Russell here attempts to reverse her legendary husband Sherlock Holmes' greatest failure.

Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, have stirred the wrath of a murderous secret organization bent on infiltrating the government. Now they are separated and on the run, wanted by the police, and pursued across the Continent by a ruthless enemy with limitless resources and powerful connections. Unstoppable together, Russell and Holmes will have to survive this time apart, maintaining contact only by means of coded messages and cryptic notes. But has the couple made a fatal mistake by separating, making themselves easier targets for the shadowy government agents sent to silence them? A hermit with a mysterious past and a beautiful young female doctor with a secret, a cruelly scarred flyer and an obsessed man of the cloth: Everyone Russell and Holmes meet could either speed their safe reunion or betray them to their enemies-in the most complex, shocking, and deeply personal case of their career

Best-selling, award-winning author Laurie R. King's tales featuring Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell are among the most popular mysteries being published. Here, King explores the great detective's initial meeting with Russell. Holmes is in a decidedly dark temper as he searches the countryside for wild bees, until he meets the headstrong young woman who will become his apprentice and eventual bride.

As Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes embark on their 11th adventure together, they find themselves immersed in the world of silent filmmaking. Here, the pirates are real-and unlike the shooting done with a camera, this sort can be deadly.

Fans craving mystery, romance, and adventure will find all that and more in Laurie R. King's best-selling tales starring Mary Russell and her world-famous husband Sherlock Holmes. Their 11th outing, Garment of Shadows finds the couple separated under strange circumstances. Mary awakens in a dark room with blood on her hands and no memory of who she is. Meanwhile, with war looming over Europe, Sherlock desperately searches for his missing wife.

For years now, readers of the Russell Memoirs have wondered about the tantalizing mentions of Japan. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes had spent three weeks there, between India (The Game) and San Francisco (Locked Rooms). The time has finally come, to tell that story. It is 1925, and Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes arrive home to find, a stone. A stone with a name, which they last saw in the Tokyo garden of the future emperor of Japan. It is the first indication that the investigation they did for him in 1924 might not be as, complete as they had thought. In Japan there were spies, in Oxford there are dreams. In both places, there is a small, dark-haired woman, and danger.

Laurie R. King's bestselling Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes series weaves rich historical detail and provocative themes with intriguing characters and enthralling suspense. Russell and Holmes have become one of modern literature's most beloved teams. But does this adventure end it all? Mary Russell is used to dark secrets-her own, and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. Trust is a thing slowly given, but over the course of a decade together, the two have forged an indissoluble bond. And what of the other person to whom Mary Russell has opened her heart: the couple's longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson? Russell's faith and affection are suddenly shattered when a man arrives on the doorstep claiming to be Mrs. Hudson's son. What Samuel Hudson tells Russell cannot possibly be true, yet she believes him-as surely as she believes the threat of the gun in his hand. In a devastating instant, everything changes. And when the scene is discovered-a pool of blood on the floor, the smell of gunpowder in the air-the most shocking revelation of all is that the grim clues point directly to Clara Hudson. Or rather to Clarissa, the woman she was before Baker Street. The key to Russell's sacrifice lies in Mrs. Hudson's past. To uncover the truth, a frantic Sherlock Holmes must put aside his anguish and push deep into his housekeeper's secrets-to a time before her disguise was assumed, before her crimes were buried away. There is death here, and murder, and trust betrayed. And nothing will ever be the same.

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes untangle the slippery threads of insanity and deadly secrets as they investigate a disappearance in the New York Times bestselling series that Lee Child called "the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today." A June summer's evening, on the Sussex Downs, in 1925. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are strolling across their orchard when the telephone rings: an old friend's beloved aunt has failed to return following a supervised outing from Bedlam. After the previous few weeks-with a bloody murder, a terrible loss, and startling revelations about Holmes, Russell is feeling a bit unbalanced herself. The last thing she wants is to deal with the mad, and yet, she can't say no. The Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, yet she seemed to be improving-or at least, finding a point of balance in her madness. So why did she disappear? Did she take the family's jewels with her, or did someone else? The Bedlam nurse, perhaps? The trail leads Russell and Holmes through a lunatic asylum's stony halls to the warm Venice lagoon, where ethereal beauty is jarred by Mussolini's Blackshirts, where the gilded Lido set may be tempting a madwoman, and where Cole Porter sits at a piano, playing with ideas.

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes turn the Riviera upside-down to crack their most captivating case yet in the New York Times bestselling series that Lee Child called "the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today." It's summertime on the Riviera, where the Jazz Age is busily reinventing the holiday delights of warm days on golden sand and cool nights on terraces and dance floors. Just up the coast lies a more traditional pleasure ground: Monte Carlo, where fortunes are won, lost, stolen, and hidden away. So when Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes happen across the Cte d'Azur in this summer of 1925, they find themselves pulled between the young and the old, hot sun and cool jazz, new friendships and old loyalties, childlike pleasures and very grownup sins...

A queen, a castle, a dark and ageless threat--all await Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes in this chilling new adventure. The queen is Marie of Roumania: the doubly royal granddaughter to Victoria, Empress of the British Empire, and Alexander II, Tsar of Russia. A famous beauty who was married at seventeen into Roumania's young dynasty, Marie had beguiled the Paris Peace Conference into returning her adopted country's long-lost provinces, single-handedly transforming Roumania from a backwater into a force. The castle is Bran: a tall, quirky, ancient structure perched on high rocks overlooking the border between Roumania and its newly regained territory of Transylvania. The castle was a gift to Queen Marie, a thanks from her people, and she loves it as she loves her own children. The threat is...now, that is less clear. Shadowy figures, vague whispers, the fears of girls, dangers that may only be accidents. But this is a land of long memory and hidden corners, a land that had known Vlad the Impaler, a land from whose churchyards the shades creep. When Queen Marie calls, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are as dubious as they are reluctant. But a young girl is involved, and a beautiful queen. Surely it won't take long to shine light on this unlikely case of what would seem to be strigoi? Or, as they are known in the West...vampires.

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, hoping for a respite in the French countryside, are instead caught up in a case that turns both bewildering and intensely personal After their recent adventures in Transylvania, Russell and Holmes look forward to spending time with Holmes' son, the famous artist Damian Adler, and his family. But when they arrive at Damian’s house, they discover that the Adlers have fled from a mysterious threat. Holmes rushes after Damian while Russell, slowed down by a recent injury, stays behind to search the empty house. In Damian’s studio, she discovers four crates packed with memorabilia related to Holmes’ grand-uncle, the artist Horace Vernet. It’s an odd mix of treasures and clutter, including a tarnished silver lamp with a rotating shade: an antique yet sophisticated form of zoetrope, fitted with strips of paper whose images dance with the lantern’s spin. In the same crate is an old journal written in a nearly impenetrable code. Intrigued, Russell sets about deciphering the intricate cryptograph, slowly realizing that each entry is built around an image—the first of which is a child, bundled into a carriage by an abductor, watching her mother recede from view. Russell is troubled, then entranced, but each entry she decodes brings more questions. Who is the young woman who created this elaborate puzzle? What does she have to do with Damian, or the Vernets—or the threat hovering over the house? The secrets of the past appear to be reaching into the present. And it seems increasingly urgent that Russell figure out how the journal and lantern are related to Damian—and possibly to Sherlock Holmes himself. Could there be things about his own history that even the master detective does not perceive?

Laurie R. King illuminates the hidden corners of her beloved Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series in this dynamic story collection. In nine short stories, seven of which have never previously been available in print, and one brand new, never-before-seen Sherlock Holmes mystery-available together for the first time-Laurie R. King blends her long-running brand of crime fiction with historical treats and narrative sleight of hand. At the heart of the collection is a prequel novella that begins with England's declaration of war in 1914. As told in Mary Russell's teenage diaries, the whip-smart girl investigates familial mysteries, tracks German spies through San Francisco, and generally delights with her extraordinary mind-until an unimaginable tragedy strikes. Here too is the case of a professor killed by a swarm of bees; Mrs. Hudson's investigation of a string of disappearing household items-and a lifelong secret; a revealing anecdote about a character integral to The God of the Hive; the story of Mary's beloved Uncle Jake and a monumental hand of cards; and a series of postcards in which Mary searches for her missing husband, Sherlock Holmes. Last but not least, fans will be especially thrilled by Mary's account of her decision, at age ninety-two, to publish her memoirs-and how she concluded that Ms. King should be the one to introduce her voice to the world.

Mary Russell's allegiances are tested by the reappearance of her long-lost uncle-and a mystifying case from the past that even Sherlock Holmes could not solve. When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black-sheep Uncle Jake. But she hasn't heard from him in many years, and she's assumed that his ne'er-do-well ways had brought him to a bad end somewhere-until he presents himself at her Sussex door. Yes, Jake is back, and with a load of problems for his clever niece. Not the least of which is the reason the family rejected him in the first place: he was involved-somehow-in the infamous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels from a secure safe in Dublin Castle. It was a theft that shook a government, enraged a King, threatened the English establishment-and baffled not only the Dublin police and Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes himself. And now, Jake expects Russell to step into the middle of it all? To slip away with him, not telling Homes what she's up to? Knowing that the theft-unsolved, hushed-up, scandalous-must have involved Mycroft Holmes as well? Naturally, she can do nothing of the sort. Siding with her Uncle Jake, even briefly, could only place her in opposition to both her husband-partner, and to his secretive and powerful brother. She has to tell Jake no. On the other hand, this is Jake-her father's kid brother, her childhood hero, beloved and long-lost survivor of a diminished family. Conflicting loyalties and international secrets, blatant lies and blithe deceptions: sounds like another case for Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.

Laurie R. King is the New York Times bestselling author of celebrated novels featuring the unique partnership between Mary Russell and the inimitable Sherlock Holmes. None other than Lee Child, himself no stranger to the bestseller list, has described King's beloved series as "the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today." From the collection Mary Russell's War, the all-new tale "Stately Holmes" delivers the historical detail and narrative sleight of hand that King's many fans have come to expect-all while gifting readers with new insight into previously unexplored aspects of the beloved series.