A whodunnit by an author who is new to me, The Art of Detection, is set in San Francisco in 2004 and 1924. The book is from the middle of a series featuring SF police detective Kate Martinelli.

King cleverly intertwines a "lost" Sherlock Holmes short story, purportedly written by Arthur Conan Doyle while visiting San Fransisco in the '20s into the story of the murder, in 2004, of a collector of Sherlockia and member of a Sherlock Holmes themed dinner club. The Sherlock Holmes story, prominently featured in the liner notes, is what drew me to this book. It is also a major clue to the 2004 murder.

King has written another series of books, set in the 1920s which are centered around a character, Mary Russell, who is apprenticed in the art of detection to the retired Sherlock Holmes, who is living the life of a beekeeper in Sussex. This is actually where Doyle leaves Holmes after unsuccessfully killing Holmes in a battle with his nemesis, Professor Moriarity, at Reichenbach Falls in The Adventure of the Final Problem.

His fans would not let Doyle stop writing Holmes stories and Doyle was forced to bring the character back to life, rather like Mr. Spock in the movie Search for Spock. This begs the irrelevant question, is Spock Sherlock Holmes?

Appropriately, the novel and the short story both deal with issues of homosexuality, gays in the military and same sex marriage. What else is there to write about in San Francisco in 2004? Fortunately, King did not choose to make Sherlock Holmes gay in her "lost" story. The gay issues are dealt with in a tasteful an inoffensive way.

King has done her Sherlock Holmes research and there is much Holmes and Doyle trivia to be gleaned in The Art of Detection. Did you know that Doyle never had Holmes say "Elementary my dear Watson" or smoke a calabash pipe?

There are two fictional murders to solve in The Art of Detection, separated by 80 years. Who committed them? Don't ask don't tell.

In this, the fifth in the Kate Martinelli series, King connects that series, set in present-day San Francisco, with her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series.

Devotees of the Conan Doyle stories of Sherlock Holmes form clubs or societies, where members dress in period costumes and meet for various social occasions. Some go to extreme lengths in what becomes nearly full-time role-playing. Philip Gilbert was one such. When he is found murdered in an old gun emplacement on the Marin headlands, Martinelli and her partner Al Hawkins follow a set of puzzling clues that include the possibility of an unpublished, original story by Conan Doyle.

While there is a great deal of involvement and information about modern Sherlockians, there is no need to read the original Sherlock Holmes stories, as all the involvement is peripheral to the stories themselves. But it is a fascinating look into the world of those devotees who throw themselves with amazing enthusiasm into the Victorian world of Holmes. It enhances the police procedural part of the story.

In addition, there is a subplot involving the death of a young gay soldier in the post World War I area in that same area, that lends spice and interest to the main plot.

Those are, in my opinion, the good parts of the book. However, I have never really taken to the Mattinelli series because to me Martinelli and her partner lee have never come across as a real lesbian couple. while I think that King is very sympathetic to her characters, she is not empathetic--they are too politically correct, too stiff, too perfect.

In this book, they are now the perfect lesbian family, since Lee has had a daughter who is now 3 years old. The child is so perfect as to be nauseating. And a number of stock lesbian characters show up as well--the minister who is a political activist, the radical. I have known people like that rather well, and none of them are as politically correct as these are; to me, they come across as stereotypes, not as real people.

And the end of the book wraps up the modern and 1920s eras into a nice, sentimental package. My problem is that I am anything but a sentimentalist, and I do not think that King handled this part of the story well at all. It's just too pat.

When Martinelli does her police work, she’s good. But her private life smacks of good intentions rather than reality. ( )

I love Laurie King's work, but don't enjoy this series nearly as much as the Mary Russell one. Also loved Touchstone, a stand alone. ( )

Ms. King's writing is excellent as always. Personally I would have loved the book to be 10 times as long and focus exclusively on Kate and Lee's personal life. But just because that's a personal fantasy of mine it would be unfair to judge the book negatively because the author followed her usual modus operandi and actually included a mystery and focused on the plot. Anyone who has been following the series knows Ms. King titillates her readers with poignant but alas brief glimpses into the characters private lives and she focuses on the plot. I can't wait for the next entry in the Martinelli saga. Kudos and my heartfelt thanks to the author. ( )

Compared to previous Kate Martinelli novels, this one was lacking. The story within the story was excellent- very compelling. The modern portion felt like a very rickety infrastructure thrown together in order to showcase the pro-lesbian sentiment that popped up throughout the book. The part that detailed the friends that Lee invited over for the inpromptu dinner party felt more like an Oscar acceptance speach with all the name dropping, and the emotional tone was as if King inserted and entire 3 pages with Kate's precincts morning roll call. The end effect is that I finished the book a week ago, and not only can I not remember who the murder was, I don't even remember who got killed. I gave it 3 stars because the Holmes story within the story was possibly the best that King has written. ( )