Rating: 
Summary: awful
Review: Another pathetic pastiche for feminist attempting to make Sherlock Holmes more palatable for the female gender.
Rating: 
Summary: The Game
Review: As is often the case, Mycroft Holmes, who is ill and abed, turns to his detective brother to do what the entire British Secret Service cannot, track down Kimball O'Hara, who has disappeared into India. Of course, Kimball, who is the original for Rudyard Kipling's Kim, has always been disappeared into India. He has been a British agent, worked for the betterment of his adopted country of India, and been something of a mystic. He is often missing, but this time Mycroft is convinced that there has been foul play.Holmes is selected because he spent time in India during his own great disappearance, has met O'Hara, and, I suspect, because his wife is Mary Russell. Mary is every bit Holmes equal, and in some ways his better. First as a team, and then separately, they adventure to Northern India and the Principality of Khanpur, where they must face corruption, insanity, and sedition in an adventure that becomes quite a bit more than a rescue mission. King does her usual best to mix plenty of fact into her fiction, so that 'The Game' becomes a travelogue and a sociological record in addition to an adventure. There is less deduction in this novel than in some of her other Russell/Holmes stories. Due mostly to the fact that the clues always lead in one direction and the real excitement becomes the tricks, feats, and disguises that enable the team to survive and conquer. King also excels at developing a supporting cast, and as one might expect from a book set in India, that cast is almost numberless. My only real criticism is that the story is very slow paced. Indeed, it is timed more like a travel diary than an adventure novel. I'm comfortable with an author that lavishes a wealth of detail on an interesting story, but for those that prefer a brisker pace this may be a bit off-putting. Kings ability to capture both the culture of the Asian subcontinent and the artificiality of the British presence, right at the time when India was in a crisis between the desire for independence, the influence of the Raj, and the menace of a Russia looking hungrily over the Himalayas.
Rating: 
Summary: Another thrilling ride from Laurie R. King
Review: I crave Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes stories. The latest installment of the series does not dissapoint. Laurie R. King has continued to grow her characters without losing any of their charm from "The Beekeeper's Apprentice." I would certainly say that the books need to be read in their correct order. And, this new book is toeing the line (along with "A Monstrous Regiment of Women") as one of my favourite in the series. The locations are wonderful--we meet delightful new characters, and the mystery is wonderfully complicated, per usual.
Rating: 
Summary: Why include Holmes?
Review: I enjoyed the book. It was fast paced and not boring. The book was perfect for a plane ride. The book described the exotic locations rather well. The master villian was interesting, in a way. The plot pressed forward with enthusiasm.
I do have several gripes. I don't understand why the author included Holmes. He does very little and makes very few decisions. He isn't a master sleuth in this book, rather he is a disguise artist and a very good magician. The plot has no mystery and no puzzles for Holmes to solve. Thus, it is not the best non-Doyle Holmes that I've read, but there are a lot worse out there. My other gripe is the heroine. She is too perfect. She is an expert marksman, a very skilled equisterian, an accurate knife thrower, extremely bright and cute. I can't see a flaw in her, and this makes her a tad boring.
There are a few plot holes and nonsensical reasoning. Some of the action scenes are poorly described. However, most mysteries have those flaws. The book is better than cotton candy for the mind, but not much.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not great.
Review: I liked The Game, but I thought it could have been better. In my opinion, it's definitely not up to the the level of the first two books, which I think are the hands-down best of the series. It was a little disappointing, though still a good read. It felt, to me, like it should have been longer by about 100 pages, most of that going into character development and the second half of the story that took place in India. The mystery seemed a little too simple. There were a lot of characters, which is not a bad thing, but a lot of them weren't fully developed and could have been used more successfully. There's also at least one unresolved plot element (those of you who've read it may have caught this-- the emeralds? Where did they go? We know from BEEK that they survived, yet there's no mention of sending luggage home or anything to explain where they went in between the time H & R leave the cruise ship and the beginning of BEEK.) Overall, it felt like the shadow of a greater work. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the portion of the book dealing with Holmes' and Russell's time on the cruise ship. That was the best part of the book, definitely what I've come to expect. It just didn't go anywhere spectacular. The suspenseful action near the end was also good, and very entertaining. It would make a good general-audience movie, I think. My main critique is that there seemed to me to be only one level to the story. In the past installments, there's been at least two, usually three or four levels to the story, creating an integrated whole, but in this one, the extra levels were fragmentary at best. This was a straightforward action-adventure, and there's nothing wrong with that, except in contrast with the more substantial novels in the series. So, yes, this is an essential read if you're obsessed with the Mary Russell series, like me. But, no, this is not the best book you'll ever read.
Rating:
Summary: another good effort
Review: I liked this book very much. The details of life in a prince's palace were fascinating, particularly the pig sticking. The book moves right along for one so richly detailed. I enjoyed the first portion somwhat more than the end; I had the feeling it was wrapped up to fit into a specific page count and could have been much more detailed; a slightly too "pat" resolution. However, several story lines were left unfinished and I look forward to seeing them carried forward in the next intallment. I recommend this book, but would start as a new reader of Laurie King with the Beekeeper's Apprentice.
Rating:
Summary: The best yet!
Review: I picked up this series a few weeks ago and devoured it at a rate unhealthy to my education. The first is always special, but I have to say the last is the best (though that might be because I like "action/adventure"). It kept me up till five in the morning. This book has everything: maharajas, flappers, madmen, monks, communists, spiritualists, magicians, big-game hunting, kidnapping, exotic destinations and beautifully sketched local color, and of course classic characters with depth and dimension. Bottom line, a fantastic read skillfully framed in genuine history as well as classic fiction.
Rating:
Summary: sadly disappointed...
Review: I was anticipating yet another tasty treat from Laurie King--a visual feast, an entertaining storyline and well-developed characters, but I was sadly disappointed. My biggest critique is that the characters fell flat. I didn't care about their fates, and that is sad because Mary Russell, for example, is usually such a strong character, I can't help but to feel an affinity with her, to cheer her on in her righteous, headstrong ways but, alas, it wasn't happening. I fear greatly that this series is dying a sad death, but I sincerely hope that this is not the case.
Rating:
Summary: Russell comes through
Review: I'm a complete addict to this series, and this entry met my expectations quite well. First, the research on India was obvious and thorough as the Punjab came to life on the page. I was actually surprised several times, and even caught in that painful feeling of not wanting to know what could happen next because it might be horrible, and yet getting all tangled up in the book anyway. There was more action this time, and happily, we seem to have left completely behind the "Mary as Victim" period of the series. While there might not be so much of the careful puzzle piecing one might expect out of a book with Holmes, it didn't really matter. Mary is thoroughly likable as a character, and she is growing and maturing through each book in a pleasing and convincing way. What I liked best, I think, was the use of a somewhat obscure (to me, at least) bit of British/Indian History as the backbone of the story. It was done so well that I am now intrigued and will have to read up on the subject. I have to applaud an author who not only takes on so venerable a literary icon as Sherlock Holmes creditably, but places him properly and believably in the historic world. Hurray for Laurie R. King. I hope she doesn't keep us waiting too long for the next installment.
Rating:
Summary: A winner
Review: In 1924 Kimball O'Hara vanishes in India while Mycroft Holmes receives a package of Kim's documents that makes him concerned that an international crisis may be brewing. He sends his brother Sherlock and his sister-in-law Mary Russell (who kept her own last name) to India to learn what happened to Kim, an English spy. On the voyage out, they meet wealthy American communist bore Tom Goodheart and his traveling companions, his mother and sister heading to see his friend, Maharaja "Jimmy" Jumalpandra, ruler of the Indian state of Khanpur. Holmes and Mary do their best to avoid the pompous know it all Yank. In India the couple masquerade as native magicians helped by Mary's ability to speak Hindi, a language she learned during the voyage. As they follow the clues the married couple wonders if Kim purposely disappeared or is a victim of foul play. Their avoidance of Tom ends when their path takes them to the Goodhearts and their enigmatic benefactor Jimmy for somehow the communist sympathizer and his Maharaja comrade are connected to Kim. Besides the fact that Kim is the grown up star of the Rudyard Kipling classic, fans will appreciate the depth of detail that sweeps the reader back to early 1924. The story line is fun to follow as Mary more than Sherlock (is he over the hill?) begins piecing together the puzzle. Thus she is the strength of this historical mystery but she is so perfect that Holmes looks like he belongs in a rocker sitting in Sussex. Still Laurie R. King provides an enjoyable foray into the Jewel of the British Empire. Harriet Klausner
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