Plot or Premise

Mary Russell, a young, financially independent woman, chanced upon a strange retired beekeeper in the countryside and became Sherlock Holmes’ apprentice.

What I Liked

I have a long list of To Be Read books, and they sit on my Kindle until fancy strikes me, and I start reading, often having no memory of how why or when I chose that title to join the queue. So it was delightful to get a few pages in and realize it’s a Sherlock Holmes story. I liked that the book reveals a few stories/cases, keeping the mix neither too long (some of Conan Doyle’s novels) nor too short (the enumerable short stories). We get to see some of her training and her adventures at school. It’s interesting to see some of the treatment of WWI, with a looming “baddie” on the horizon, who proves more than capable of taking them both on.

What I Didn’t Like

There are a couple of long lulls in the stories where nothing happens. Since the stories are told from Russell’s perspective, you have no idea what Holmes is doing during those times. This is rather reminiscent of the Hound of the Baskervilles, where Holmes is gently felt but not seen. There are also a couple of significant errors by Holmes, corrected by Russell, and they feel forced. It works well when she thinks of something he didn’t, connecting some dots, but when she thinks of potential impacts on others that he is oblivious to, it doesn’t ring true. It is sort of like chess…while he might miss an opening gambit or a rogue move, he wouldn’t miss obvious moves likely to follow the opening three or four moves.

The Bottom Line

A great addition to the world of Holmes