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Sixth in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series.

Russell and Holmes have barely returned home to Sussex before they are startled by insistent knocking at their door. Russell opens the door--and Ali, one of the two “Arabs” with whom Holmes and Russell sojourned in Palestine, falls through the door. This is a very different Ali--dressed in expensive Western clothing and wounded. After rest, Ali, clearly not an Arab (although both Russell and Holmes knew that before leaving Palestine), still invokes the bonds of Bedu brotherhood, asking their help in saving “Mahmoud”, the other Arab, who is in reality his cousin Maurice. Due to the childless death of his older brother, a duke, Mahmoud/Maurice suddenly inherited the title the family estate in Berhshire, Justice Hall. Both Ali (Alistair) and Maurice returned from Palestine to follow the call of duty; Maurice, however, having fled that life to begin with, is now drinking himself to death in order to bear the burden of a life he never wanted. Russell and Holmes accompany Ali to Justice Hall, where they find a much-changed Maurice and an intriguing mystery surrounding the death of Maurice’s nephew, who would have inherited the title, during World War I.

Another excellent installment in the series. King is interested in World War I and the post-war era; she wrote a stand-alone book, Touchstone, that takes place during that period. The issue of British soldiers and officers being shot as deserters or cowards is a shameful one in British military history, and the plot makes full use of those abuses of power.

Naturally, there is opportunity for Holmes and Russell to don disguises in order to carry out their investigations; the ones in this book are particularly amusing.

This book has all of King’s strengths: good plotting, excellent characterizations, spare writing, and an exciting denouement. Highly recommended. ( )

While mildly interesting, there wasn’t much of a mystery here. I haven’t read the previous book, so I’m sure that the new natures of the brothers weren’t as shocking to me as they would have been had I read it. But the shock kept being repeated between Holmes and Russell.

Now that is a strange thing – to picture Holmes married. I cannot conceive of him having so human a reaction to anything as would be required to sustain the bare minimum of a marriage. But Russell seems to be OK with his coldness and his lack of passion about anything except for solving mysteries and cocaine.

In the end, the elder brother is released from his ‘onerous duties’ as the titled head of the family. These duties are almost usurped by a fake son of the deceased lord and his mother. But in the end, the dead lord’s son was found to also have a son. He has been hiding in Canada with his mother who didn’t want anything to do with the family. In the end, she is won over (as only vast amounts of money can do with the morally indignant). ( )

JUSTICE HALL is the sixth book in the series about Sherlock Holmes and his wife Mary Russell. Yes, a much older Sherlock Holmes, now in his fifties, has taken on an apprentice and a wife, in the much younger Mary Russell. The stories are told from Mary's viewpoint, as she and Sherlock work together to solve cases.

This one reunites Mary and Sherlock with two former friends, but times find them much changed. When Mary and Sherlock knew them, they knew them as Ali and Muhammad, two Beduins who helped them travel through Palestine on a secret mission for Mycroft. At the time Sherlock had his suspicions that the two brothers were not originally Arab as they appeared. And indeed they were not. Now, Ali turns up on the door begging help for Muhammad and looking and sounding like a very proper English gentleman. The problem that Ali needs help with so desperately is the fact that circumstances have demanded that Muhammad resume his old life as Marsh Hughenfort and the death of the heir to the title has made him the seventh Duke. Mary and Sherlock travel to Justice Hall and find a very unhappy man determined to do his duty, even though being away from his beloved desert is killing him. When it becomes clear that they will not be able to change his mind, Sherlock and Mary set out to help by providing Marsh with support during the difficult time and begin investigating the rather suspicious death of the young heir, executed for cowardice during World War I, and the set out to prove whether or not Marsh's heir, the son of his brother, is actually his son. More and more mysteries enter and then someone tries to kill Marsh. And the game is afoot.

Laurie E. King has written another great addition to her rather improbable mystery series that takes a very much different look at Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is still the Sherlock we know and love and yet different. Mary is charming and a very unique modern woman, a true heroine. JUSTICE HALL is very worth reading.

Reviewed by Linda Suzane, June 5, 2002. ( )

Here, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes meet up with the blood-thirsty Arab spies from "O Jerusalem", and they turn out to be British nobility. It is another terrific mystery laced with wit, intelligence, a tight sense of place, and elegant language. At one point, a soldier's diary records, "I was clotted with France, stinking of battle." Wish I'd written it. ( )