I read The Beekeeper’s Apprentice not long after it came out and I have been following the new adventures of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes ever since. Picking up where the last Mary Russell novel left off, The Language of Bees finds Holmes and Russell heading back to Sussex for a bit of rest-or so they think. But no sooner are they home than they are greeted by Sherlock Holmes long lost son-and he is missing a wife. A mystery-The Game is Afoot.
One of the fun bits of business in the universe of Sherlock Holmes as envisioned by Laurie R King is that Sherlock pretty much hates the stories that Dr Watson has written about him. He considers them to be silly bits of nonsense, but he still lets Watson write them as it seems to bring Watson some happiness.
Since so much was left to the imagine in the original Holmes stories all additional writers have felt free to add all manner of life to the stuffy and stiff character of Sherlock Holmes. Most of them cure him of his bad habits-Mary Russell’s Sherlock drinks a good deal but he does not use drugs. He is also a devoted husband who treats Mary Russell with far more respect than I can image the Victorian Sherlock Holmes giving, well, anyone. But it is always good to see Sherlock, that lost Uncle who drops in for a visit now and then.
The Language of Bees is more about Mary Russell than Sherlock Holmes, but then, Mary has always been the star of these novels. She seems more so than usual here, or maybe it’s just been a while since I read the last book. Mary does a lot of snooping on her own, interviewing suspects on her own, tracking down clues and investigating their meaning on her own. She shares her info with Sherlock-who is off screen for a good deal of The Language of Bees-and Mary spends a lot of time with Mycroft Holmes-who was a minor character in the books. Of course, Mycroft Holmes has bloomed into a far greater figure than Sherlock-since so little was written about him by Conan Doyle.
Woven throughout The Language of Bees are exerts from The Book of Testimony-a pseudo religious text written as the foundation of a 1920s religious cult in the style of Alister Crowley-who is mentioned in passing. The 1920s are often compared to the 1960s as far as odd beliefs and a willingness to follow anyone anywhere are concerned. So part of the mystery here has to do with this religion, and the Son of Sherlock Holmes’s involvement with it.
The Language of Bees is a fun read, I was not best pleased to find that words To Be Continued at the end of it. It is a long books filled with all the minutia of a detective busy on the trail of an evil genius-but I was not always thrilled to travel with Mary as she made her way hither and yon.
Still these are good historical fiction, so far as I can tell, filled with all kinds of odds and ends about life in the UK around the 1920s. There is also a bit business about how difficult travel by air was, but our hero Mary Russell forged ahead just the same.
These are fun books, and who wouldn’t like the idea of an old codger like Holmes marrying a young hottie like Russell? The writing in the Book of Testimony is pretty good as well.
The Language of Bees (Mary Russell Novels)
