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Loading... The Beekeeper's Apprentice (1994)by Laurie R. King
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Mary Russell, a teenaged genius who matches wits and joins forces with the "retired" Sherlock Holmes. She's a character I'd like to spend more time with. The story is well-plotted, and exciting in all the right ways, but I was totally bewildered by the mechanics of the climactic scene, and that might influence my decision to carry on with this series. ( ) Sherlock Holmes fanfic. Entertaining. I seem to remember a few bits toward the beginning that were too embarrassingly Mary Sue to read, but it settles down after a hundred or so pages. Interesting approach to story-telling: the speed of events changes wildly throughout the book---but very true to what it's supposed to be, which is a memoir. (2007) Pretty good take on Sherlock Holmes several years after he has ?retired? who takes on a young female protege Mary Russell who turns out to be a very good complement to Holmes's talents. Book is really a collection of short stories and a novella which all lead into one another with the ultimate case of solving who is trying to kill Holmes. Turns out is his nemesis's (Moriarity) daughter.(PW)Sherlock Holmes takes on a young, female apprentice in this delightful and well-wrought addition to the master detective's casework. In the early years of WW I, 15-year-old American Mary Russell encounters Holmes, retired in Sussex Downs where Conan Doyle left him raising bees. Mary, an orphan rebelling against her guardian aunt's strictures, impresses the sleuth with her intelligence and acumen. Holmes initiates her into the mysteries of detection, allowing her to participate in a few cases when she comes home from her studies at Oxford. The collaboration is ignited by the kidnapping in Wales of Jessica Simpson, daughter of an American senator. The sleuthing duo find signs of the hand of a master criminal, and after Russell rescues the child, attempts are made on their lives (and on Watson's), with evidence piling up that the master criminal is out to get Holmes and all he holds dear. King ( A Grave Talent ) has created a fitting partner for the Great Detective: a quirky, intelligent woman who can hold her own with a man renowned for his contempt for other people's thought processes. Way better than I expected, but I don't think I'll be reading anymore in this series. It begins as a really satisfying cozy suspense novel, and King nails the atmosphere of the late 1910s, but the overall plot didn't wow me. I also realized (rather to my consternation) that I don't LIKE Mary Russell. Maybe it's because the narrative voice is that of an old woman looking back, but she comes off as preternaturally confident, capable, and detached. I feel bad for being all "OMG Mary Sue"; the character was constructed to be a suitable partner for Holmes himself, so I want her to be intelligent and excellent. But she didn't feel compelling or three-dimensional, at least not after the first hundred pages or so. I'm not sure if I would have liked the book more or less if I were more of a Sherlock Holmes buff - I haven't read the original stories for ages and never picked up most of the novels.
But at the heart of the novel is not the historical accuracy or the gender commentary; rather, the core of the story is the partnership between Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. It's a partnership between equals, of two keen minds, two clever, stubborn, and formidable people who nevertheless feel the psychological weight of the profession they have chosen to follow. Moreover, there's none of that tired and overdone sexual tension that one might expect from a story with two protagonists of the opposite gender. There are no romantic interludes, tense moments, or pensive fantasizing. Instead, rather like the recent adaptation Elementary, the story does something remarkable: portray a friendship and a relationship between two unique characters of opposite genders without going down the tired, old, (and, in the case of Holmesian adaptations, particularly overdone) path of romance. Is contained inWas inspired byHas as a commentary on the textHas as a student's study guideAwardsNotable Lists
A chance meeting with a Sussex beekeeper turns into a pivotal, personal transformation when fifteen-year-old Mary Russell discovers that the beekeeper is the reclusive, retired detective Sherlock Holmes, who soon takes on the role of mentor and teacher. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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