Showing results by author "Laurie R. King" in All Categories

Mary Russell, assistant and protégée of the great Sherlock Holmes, finds herself and her partner once more mired in mystery. When Mary is given a scrap of papyrus by an old archaeologist friend, she has no inkling of what it contains. Written in Greek, it could be a letter from a previously unknown apostle - who just happens to be female. However, the situation moves from being curiously exciting to chillingly perilous as the archaeologist is murdered and Mary and Sherlock's home is ransacked.

In 1924, San Francisco is booming. The great fire and earthquake of 1906 cleared the ground for a modern city, but the closer she comes to the place she used to call home, the more troubling Mary Russell's dreams become. As Russell and her husband, the great detective Sherlock Holmes, attempt to settle their affairs in the City by the Bay, Mary's past isn't the only thing that catches up with them....

In a strange room in Morocco, Mary Russell is trying to solve a pressing mystery: Who am I? She has awakened with shadows in her mind, blood on her hands, and soldiers pounding on the door. Out in the hivelike streets, she discovers herself strangely adept in the skills of the underworld, escaping through alleys and rooftops, picking pockets and locks. She is clothed like a man, and armed only with her wits and a scrap of paper containing a mysterious Arabic phrase. Overhead, warplanes pass ominously north.

With her debut novel, A Grave Talent, Laurie R. King became the first novelist since Patricia Cornwell to win prizes for Best First Crime Novel on both sides of the Atlantic. Few authors dare to touch the classic canon of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, but in this charming and suspenseful series, Edgar award-winner King succeeds with triumphant originality. Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, are now on their sixth thrilling outing together.

Only the elders of the Valley remember life the way it used to be, when people travelled in automobiles and bought food others had grown. When the ratio of male to female was nearly the same. Before the bombs fell, and a deadly virus claimed the world's men. Now, civilization's few surviving males are guarded by women warriors like Dian, the Valley's chief protector, as fierce and loyal as the guard dogs she trains. When an unexpected convoy of strangers rides into her village, it is Dian who meets them, ready to do battle....

In the hillside beauty of San Francisco, Kate Martinelli, a young female officer, is promoted to the Homicide division, inheriting a middle-aged partner who is expected to resent her. Instead, the two forge a rare and rich partnership. When rookie detective Kate Martinelli hunts for a sadist who is strangling six-year-old girls, something about the trail makes her think that she may be falling into a trap.

In a case that will push their relationship to breaking point, Mary Russell must help reverse the greatest failure of her husband Sherlock Holmes's past - a personal defeat that still has the power to sting.

From suicides at Stonehenge to a bizarre religious cult, Russell will find herself on the trail of a killer more dangerous than any she's ever faced - a killer Sherlock Holmes himself may be protecting....

Mary Russell is trying to solve a pressing mystery: Who am I? She has awakened with shadows in her mind, blood on her hands and soldiers pounding at the door. Overhead, warplanes pass ominously north. Meanwhile, Holmes needs the wisdom of his wife, whom he discovers has gone missing. As Holmes searches and Russell searches for herself, each tries to crack deadly parallel puzzles before it’s too late.

Paris, 1929. For Harris Stuyvesant, his current assignment is a private investigator's dream - he's getting paid to trawl the cafés and bars of Montparnasse, looking for a pretty young woman. The missing person in question is Philippa Crosby, a 22-year-old from Boston, whose family have become alarmed at her lack of communication. As Stuyvesant follows Philippa's trail through Paris, he finds that she is known to many of its famous - and infamous - inhabitants, from Shakespeare and Company's Sylvia Beach to the surrealist photographer Man Ray. But when the evidence leads Stuyvesant to the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Montmartre, his investigation takes a sharp and disturbing turn.

Homicide detectives Kate Martinelli and Al Hawkin are investigating the death of a man whose cremated remains are found in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Implicated in the death is Erasmus, a wandering soul and latter-day Shakespearean Fool who Kate doubts is guilty. He will say nothing to point the investigation away from himself, and Kate must not only prove his innocence, she must also nail the real killer.

When an old archeologist friend gives Mary Russell a curled scrap of papyrus, Mary is startled to see that it is covered with Greek symbols. The writing may be a letter from an unknown-female-apostle. Soon the old friend has been murdered, the Holmes' cottage has been ransacked, and Mary is faced with a particularly dangerous and painful investigation. From the solitude of the English countryside to the dark teeming streets of London, A Letter of Mary carries the two quick-witted sleuths through a maze of clues and cul-de-sacs.

In nine short stories, seven of which have never previously been available in print, and one brand-new, never-before-seen Sherlock Holmes mystery - available together for the first time - Laurie R. King blends her long-running brand of crime fiction with historical treats and narrative sleight of hand.

A classmate from Oxford University introduces Mary to Margery Childe, the charismatic spiritual leader of the New Temple of God. Curious about Margery’s popular teachings, Mary begins attending temple meetings. But when Margery’s followers—all well-bred, well-heeled young women—become targets for murder, Mary senses something sinister lurking within the walls of the temple. With Holmes at her side, she plunges headlong into the most dangerous investigation of her life.

Though she cannot entirely discount the effects of the head injuries they were both suffering at the time, Mary Russell is delighted by Sherlock Holmes’ proposal of marriage. After all, they have become partners in crime, and she has recently come into her inheritance: what remains but to confirm the union with her mentor-turned-partner through a piece of paper? Russell’s pragmatic side tells her to head straight to the registry office - until Holmes surprises her with a sentimental wish to be married in the chapel of his ancestral manor. There’s just the small issue of ownership: the house is not exactly his, and he is most definitely not welcome there.

Kate Martinelli has seen her share of peculiar things as a San Francisco cop but never anything quite like this: an ornate Victorian sitting room straight out of a Sherlock Holmes story - complete with violin, tobacco-filled Persian slipper, and gunshots in the wallpaper that spell out the initials of the late queen.

Mary Russell is used to dark secrets - her own and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. Trust is a thing slowly given, but over the course of a decade together, the two have forged an indissoluble bond. And what of the other person to whom Mary Russell has opened her heart: the couple's longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson?

Adrift in mist-shrouded San Francisco mornings and alcohol-fogged nights, homicide detective Kate Martinelli can't escape the void left by her departed lover, who has gone off to rethink their relationship. But when 12-year-old Jules Cameron comes to Kate for a professional consultation, Kate's not sure she's that desperate for distraction.

Over the course of a decade together, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes have forged an indissoluble bond. But what of the other person Mary Russell has opened her heart to, Mrs Hudson? Blood on the floor, and the smell of gunshot in the air: both point directly at Clara Hudson. The key to Russell's sacrifice lies in Mrs Hudson's past, and to uncover the crime Holmes must put aside his anguish and push deep into his housekeeper's secrets.

Inspector Kate Martinelli has worked the SFPD's Homicide Detail for nearly 30 years. One day her 15-year-old daughter, Nora, asks about an aunt she'd never met. Kate's kid sister died in the 1980s, a wild young woman who lost control of a car and hit a tree, end of story...except it isn't. Because once Kate begins to look, seeking to reassure Nora that it was only a senseless accident and not the suicide a small town's gossip made it, she starts to find pieces that don't fit the picture.

Kate and her partner, Al Hawkin, are called to a scene of carefully executed murder: the victim is a muscular man, handcuffed and strangled, a stun gun's faint burn on his chest and candy in his pocket. The likeliest person to want him dead, his often-abused wife, is meek and frail - and has an airtight alibi. Kate and Al are stumped until a second body turns up - also zapped, cuffed, and strangled...and carrying a candy bar.