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Sherlock Holmes in San Francisco

Monday, 31 October 2005

Locked Rooms, by Laurie R. King. Bantam, 2005. 402 pages, $24. There are novels that are better written than they need to be. Usually, all a reader asks of a detective story is that it be tautly paced and plausibly written and feature a few compelling characters so a reader can be entertained for a few hours. Some detective novels, however, rise to the level of literature. Several of the books in Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series manage to accomplish that. Beginning with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice in 1994, this series has told the adventures of Mary Russell, a young American scholar living in England, and Sherlock Holmes, now retired, but vigorous. The conceit of the series is that Ms. King was sent a trunkful of the late Mary Russell’s manuscripts and merely serves as the editor. Over the course of a number of books, their relationship has deepened and the two have married. Their adventures have taken them all over England, to Jerusalem and back, and recently, to India. The latest entry into the series Locked Rooms takes place in the San Francisco of the 1920s. San Francisco was Mary Russell’s childhood home, and she lived there from shortly before the 1906 earthquake until her parents and brother were killed in an automobile accident that left her scarred, both physically and psychologically. Russell and Holmes stop in San Francisco on their way back to England from India in order to settle Russell’s business affair. Disturbing dreams and memories are accompanied by unexplained attacks by unseen gunmen. Russell makes the acquaintance of old friends and Holmes finds himself in the company of a former Pinkerton detective named Dashiell Hammett. This kind of thing is very difficult to pull off. For one thing, Sherlock Holmes fans and scholars are legion, and they are unforgiving. I don’t know how Ms. King’s novels have been received among the Sherlockians, but they have been embraced by mystery lovers all over the English-speaking world. These novels are narrated, usually, in the first person by Mary Russell herself. This narrative choice avoids the trap of trying to write like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and sidesteps pastiche. Mary Russell has developed a distinctive voice of her own, and her Holmes is not Conan Doyle’s nor is it Doctor Watson’s, but a character who exists quite outside nineteenth century prose Locked Rooms is also that rare thing in a series, a novel that can stand alone. Whatever back-story is needed is provided economically. Since this book takes Mary Russell back to the beginning of her life, and the events that sent her to England in the first place, a reader new to the series can leap in here, without knowledge of the earlier books. All the novels in this series are labeled “novels of suspense” and they are that. It isn’t action, but wanting to know what happens next that drives the reader along. The characters, both fictional and historical, are composed of flesh and blood. Ms. King’s historical research is meticulous. Since Locked Rooms is set in San Francisco, we get the added fun of trying to keep up with exactly where everything takes place. That’s just a bonus for local reader. There is a depiction of The City immediately after the earthquake – Chinatown and Pacific Heights, and a hilarious shopping trip to Union Square. All of the books show off a rigorous intellect while managing to be very funny. Locked Rooms is a rich, entertaining and highly literate work by a writer who is at the top of her game. Mark J. Mitchell’s novel, Sir Gawain’s Little Green Book, is available from Amazon.com.

Last Updated ( Saturday, 15 December 2007 )