The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

Just to explain real quick: I really love to read. I go to book club once a month and read books for that, plus other things here and there. I also really want to keep my brain active and usefull. I'm pretty sure that my brain is like mush compared to what it once was. So ... I decided that I should write a little bit about the books I read. Kind of like a book report. Kind of. So why am I posting these little book reports on the blog? Well, I need the motivation. If I think that people are going to be reading what I wrote, I'm going to be much more careful and thoughtful about it. Does that make sense? Here goes nothin'.


I am fairly new to mystery novels. I enjoy watching mysteries so I should have known that I would really enjoy reading them. Up until recently though, the only mystery books I’ve read have been a few of the Mrs. Pollifax series by Dorothy Gillman which I would highly recommend. But that all changed when The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King was chosen for the book club I attend. I read it and loved it!

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is written from the point of view of Mary Russell, a 15 year old orphan who meets Sherlock Holmes and then becomes his pupil. The Sherlock Holmes in this book could be quite different from the Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I don't know. I do look forward to finding out, though.

Holmes and Russell work on a few cases together, all the time building up Russell’s experience and intelligence. At the same time the teacher/pupil relationship is slowly changing to one of partnership. Russell brings different views and talents, such as the ability to throw like a boy, to the partnership that Holmes comes to depend on. Russell herself says, “Holmes the painstaking, Holmes the thoughtful, calculating thinker, Holmes the solitary operator who never so much as consulted another for advice, this Holmes I thought I knew was now proposing to launch himself into the abyss, trusting absolutely in my ability to catch him.”

Finally Holmes and Russell themselves come under attack from an unknown foe. Some clues are deeply hidden, and yet others are very blatantly left to be discovered. And it seems that no matter what lengths are taken to evade and discover their attacker, nothing works. It does appear that at last the great Sherlock Holmes, along with Mary Russell, has met his match. Only reading the book will tell.