Book Rec: A Letter of Mary
I devoured the third book in the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King, A Letter of Mary, and for the most part, King fixed the issues I had with the second book, A Monstrous Regiment of Women.
Now that Russell and Holmes are married, Holmes was practically in every scene, which I was very pleased about because it gave us lots of deliciously quotable scenes where the Russell/Holmes chemistry is just on fire. And while unfortunately Watson wasn’t in this book at all (sadface), Lestrade took his place and had a lot of screentime. There were also little clandestine meetings with Mycroft, Sherlock, Russell, and Lestrade all in one room. There’s even a tongue-in-cheek reference to Russell meeting J.R.R. Tolkien!
This book was unusual for me because I actually felt the tragedy of the murder Russell and Holmes are jointly investigating, that of Dorothy Ruskin, an archeologist who gives Russell a peculiar gift. Usually in dealing with Sherlock Holmes, the sadness of death is overridden by the excitement Holmes feels in getting the chance to have the distraction of a new case with a clever murderer; the body is nothing more than evidence. But in this case, I definitely felt sad that such a brilliant, unique woman had been killed. The world clearly lost a valuable, irreplaceable resource in Ruskin and is poorer for it.
Two passages were particularly interesting and relevant to my interests in the novel, so I’ll share them with you:
-The first regards Mycroft and the dangerousness of having someone with that much power. On page 110 of my copy, Russell notes:
He was possibly the most powerful individual in the British government by then, and power, even when wielded by such a moral and incorruptible person as Mycroft Holmes, is never an easy companion. I was never unaware of it, and always there lurked the knowledge that his power was without checks, that the government and the people lay nearly defenceless should he choose to do harm or, an appalling thought, should his successor prove neither moral nor incorruptible. I was fond of Mycroft, but I was also just a bit afraid of him.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a story dealing with Mycroft’s predecessor or successor before, and this passage made me very uneasy when thinking about who might take over when the BBC’s Mycroft decides to retire.
-The second is the promised hand!porn. As anybody who has seen either the movie The Pianist or Benedict Cumberbatch in anything can attest, hands can be extremely sensual and suggestive of the inward character of their owners. Doctors often look to fingernails as a way of diagnosing medical issues. To me, this little moment stands in the place of a sex scene between Russell and Holmes, page 118 in my copy:
…[A]s I lay back in the chair with my eyes closed, half-drowsing, I felt my left hand taken up. In the silence of our breathing, he began to explore my hand with his, in a slow, almost impersonal manner that left me unaware of anything else in the universe. He ran his smooth, cool fingertips along each of my fingers, exploring the swell of the knuckles and the shape of my nails, teasing the tiny hairs, probing the soft webs between the fingers and the joint of the thumb and the tendons and the large vein up to the wrist, arousing the skin and the hand itself to a most extraordinary pitch of awareness. He ended, at the point when the exquisite sensations threatened to become unbearable, by raising my hand almost formally to his lips, lingering there for an instant, and then restoring it to me.
Unf, don’t you just feel like a shower after reading that? Now, obviously, crazed porn reader/sex fiend that I am, I would prefer…an actual sex scene to Holmes merely kissing Russell’s hand, but as long as it’s written like that, I can’t really complain, can I.
For more, please see:
- Brief Review of Book One, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
- Review of Book Two, A Monstrous Regiment of Women
- Review of Book Four, The Moor
- Review of Book Five, O Jerusalem
- Review of Book Six, Justice Hall
- Review of Book Seven, The Game
- Review of Radio Drama, a radio adaptation of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
Now that Russell and Holmes are married, Holmes was practically in every scene, which I was very pleased about because it gave us lots of deliciously quotable scenes where the Russell/Holmes chemistry is just on fire. And while unfortunately Watson wasn’t in this book at all (sadface), Lestrade took his place and had a lot of screentime. There were also little clandestine meetings with Mycroft, Sherlock, Russell, and Lestrade all in one room. There’s even a tongue-in-cheek reference to Russell meeting J.R.R. Tolkien!
This book was unusual for me because I actually felt the tragedy of the murder Russell and Holmes are jointly investigating, that of Dorothy Ruskin, an archeologist who gives Russell a peculiar gift. Usually in dealing with Sherlock Holmes, the sadness of death is overridden by the excitement Holmes feels in getting the chance to have the distraction of a new case with a clever murderer; the body is nothing more than evidence. But in this case, I definitely felt sad that such a brilliant, unique woman had been killed. The world clearly lost a valuable, irreplaceable resource in Ruskin and is poorer for it.
Two passages were particularly interesting and relevant to my interests in the novel, so I’ll share them with you:
-The first regards Mycroft and the dangerousness of having someone with that much power. On page 110 of my copy, Russell notes:
He was possibly the most powerful individual in the British government by then, and power, even when wielded by such a moral and incorruptible person as Mycroft Holmes, is never an easy companion. I was never unaware of it, and always there lurked the knowledge that his power was without checks, that the government and the people lay nearly defenceless should he choose to do harm or, an appalling thought, should his successor prove neither moral nor incorruptible. I was fond of Mycroft, but I was also just a bit afraid of him.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a story dealing with Mycroft’s predecessor or successor before, and this passage made me very uneasy when thinking about who might take over when the BBC’s Mycroft decides to retire.
-The second is the promised hand!porn. As anybody who has seen either the movie The Pianist or Benedict Cumberbatch in anything can attest, hands can be extremely sensual and suggestive of the inward character of their owners. Doctors often look to fingernails as a way of diagnosing medical issues. To me, this little moment stands in the place of a sex scene between Russell and Holmes, page 118 in my copy:
…[A]s I lay back in the chair with my eyes closed, half-drowsing, I felt my left hand taken up. In the silence of our breathing, he began to explore my hand with his, in a slow, almost impersonal manner that left me unaware of anything else in the universe. He ran his smooth, cool fingertips along each of my fingers, exploring the swell of the knuckles and the shape of my nails, teasing the tiny hairs, probing the soft webs between the fingers and the joint of the thumb and the tendons and the large vein up to the wrist, arousing the skin and the hand itself to a most extraordinary pitch of awareness. He ended, at the point when the exquisite sensations threatened to become unbearable, by raising my hand almost formally to his lips, lingering there for an instant, and then restoring it to me.
Unf, don’t you just feel like a shower after reading that? Now, obviously, crazed porn reader/sex fiend that I am, I would prefer…an actual sex scene to Holmes merely kissing Russell’s hand, but as long as it’s written like that, I can’t really complain, can I.
For more, please see:
- Brief Review of Book One, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
- Review of Book Two, A Monstrous Regiment of Women
- Review of Book Four, The Moor
- Review of Book Five, O Jerusalem
- Review of Book Six, Justice Hall
- Review of Book Seven, The Game
- Review of Radio Drama, a radio adaptation of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice