Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat Satisfying
Review: Well written, good sense of period, acceptable plot (although why the villan bothered to keep the heroine alive beats me), the grenade in this book is on the last page. Having been seriously in love with Sherlock Holmes throughout my adolescence, I'm glad to see that there is some kind of woman who can attract his emotional attention. A previous reviewer/reader's comment about Holmes' inability to love anything but his own creation is painfully acute.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing sequal to a wonderful book.
Review: Good God.... why???? I screamed in silent agony as I read the closing pages of the novel. If you are a long time Sherlock Holmes fan, then I suggest you read the novel, but skip the last one and a half page. Just take my word for it that the villain is caught (as they are always) after an unremarkable chase, and leave it at that. The ending was character-destroying and stupifying beyond belief, unworthy of the same author who penned the wonderful "Beekeeper's Apprentice". However, having said that, the book _is_ well-written. King is one of the very few authors today that can create a genuine historical atmosphere without sounding pompous and pretentious. The style is easy to read, while transporting me back to 1920, London. The characterisation generally rich and, apart from Holmes, believable. King does tend to overstate her theme however, using her characters often as nothing but mouth-pieces. This, I suspect, is not appreciated by many of her intelligent readers. Overall, this novel was a good read, but a poor and disappointing sequal to the refreshing "Beekeeper's Apprentice".
Rating:
Summary: Women's movement in 1920s in England, + physical mayhem!
Review: Laurie King delivers again, in a convincing novel which has Mary Russell solving a crime primarily on her own, with Sherlock Holmes as her very resourceful aide-de-camp. Laurie finds herself liking a magnetic woman leader, who though unschooled, sways with words and raw intellect. Problems begin to appear when several of the wealthier disciples, cult members, begin to meet their Creator after homicidal endings. And only after having arranged to leave the high priestess and the organization fairly substantial amounts of money. The quasi-religious organization is in fact doing some deeds of mercy, teaching reading to children, arranging for sheltering homeless and battered women and their families, while helping them to become trained for more than just menial jobs. A weak link in the story is that Margery Childe, the chief of the organization, is held victim to love of a criminal husband. The reader must ask themselves whether such a strong personality in all other facets of her life can in this area of love and romance be such a weakling. Nevertheless, Mary Russell, armed with her Oxford degree, and at the top of the Bell curve in all her intelligence and physical dexterity, manages to get into and out of trouble, thwarting an attempted murder, overcoming forced injections of habit forming drugs, and after winning out over all the sins in evildom, manages to end Sherlock Holmes' bachelor hood. Sensing a movie in the making, Mary will be played by Linda Carter, who will need to bring her Wonder Woman togs out of mothballs. Overall, this book by Laurie Ring is not quite up to her "Beekeeper's Apprentice", only in that she develops periods of predictability in her plot. I rate her as well above average in maintaining reader interest, particularly the way in which she seems to have a tremendous grasp of the language of the early 1900s in England. Further, Ring manages to keep the flow of information at a high enough level to keep the reader from becoming bored, and sustains the mystery's ability to zig and zag with gusto.
Rating: 
Summary: The Problem of the Slipshod Pastiche
Review: Actually, "monstrous" doesn't begin to describe the outrageous liberties which Laurie R. King takes with the master detective in this, her second resurrection of Sherlock Holmes in her Mary Russell series. Nor does that fine word cover the extent of the disappointment which readers, your truly included, feel (or are likely to feel) after trudging through a lame plot - laced with religious philosophy that's about as subtle as being brained with a service revolver - only to arrive at a cliched ending straight out of MACMILLIAN AND WIFE. Those who thrilled to King's truly remarkable THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE will no doubt wish to discover how Mary Russell developes into her own, but be warned: this time, the game is afoot, and it's limping - badly.
Rating: 
Summary: A great read for those who enjoy turn-of-the-century England
Review: Mary Russell is a compelling young woman and an unusual one for her time in history. She seems repelled by the lifestyles now lead by her female classmates from Oxford, but must join them in order to answer some disturbing questions. Mary's tensions with Holmes keep this sequel to The Beekeeper's Apprentice intriguing. King takes the reader through the grime of London, through the damp and cold, but the heat is on in all other respects.
Rating:
Summary: A romance that transcends morality and propriety
Review: It hardly bears mentioning any longer that Ms. King's second "Mary" book demonstrates all the technical skill of the first. The plotting and the characterization are excellent. I wonder though, why I am the only one disturbed by the implications of this intimate relationship between an elderly man and his minor protegee. Does Laurie King mean to imply that the only woman that Holmes could love would have to be one he created? And how sick is that?
Nevertheless, I am impressed by Ms. King's treatment of the traditional Holmes mystery from a proto-feminist point of view. This juxtaposition of the world's most famous misogynist as a lover and a defender of women's rights, gives an added, compelling dimension to the man.
Rating:
Summary: A Monstrous Regiment of Women, Beekeeper's Apprentice
Review: Couldn't stop reading it--I've read it for 10 hours straight one day. I stopped only because I was tired and decided that I wanted to savor it later. Highly recommend The Beekeeper's Apprentice (the first in this series) as well. Writing is more sophisticated than Agatha Christie's usual mystery, and not dry like Conan Doyle's Watson's narrarative. If you've read a lot of the above two authors and are looking for a change or an addition to your family of favorite mystery heroes, this is it
Rating:
Summary: What an extraordinary book!
Review: A friend lent me this book, and I confess I was suspicious at first. It sounded like a ludicrous premise -- a female student/assistant/friend of Sherlock Holmes in his retirement? A charismatic female religious leader? Then I read it, and was completely impressed. The writing is superb -- the details, both of the physical world the characters move in and of Mary Russell's thoughts and reactions, pulled me in and kept me there. The story is well-plotted and kept me guessing right till the end. I still wonder how on earth King ever came up with the premise -- and I confess I still find it not entirely realistic -- but the book was so good my disbelief went out the window. Now I can't wait to get my hands on the first and third books in the series!
Rating:
Summary: An excellent Sherlock Holmes pastiche
Review: Laurie R. King has successfully mastered the character of Sherlock Holmes in a way few other writers of Holmes pastiches have been able to. Her Holmes is a very convincing middle-aged version of the character initially made famous by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Yet he is largely a background, supporting character to the equally well-realized heroine of _The Beekeeper's Apprentice_, Mary Russell, here making her second appearance in _A Monstrous Regiment of Women_.
Throughout the two books, Russell has been carefully developed as Holmes' intellectual equal and here she is largely on her own as she investigates mysterious doings concerning an army of early feminists, out performing good works among the poor of London. Is the group's charismatic leader somehow involved in a series of murders? Russell, with Holmes' help, must find out.
A very tightly written and engrossing novel, this does however suffer somewhat from a rather forced and unbelievable conclusion. Still, the book is highly recommended, although you might wish to read _The Beekeeper's Apprentice_ first, if you haven't yet done so
Rating:
Summary: Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell together again
Review: I loved the first book in this new Sherlock Holmes series,
"The Beekeeper's Apprentice". This second book is not only as good as the first one, it is even better. The suprise twist
at the end left me gasping for breath (I didn't realize I had been holding it!) and I may go mad before the next book
in the series ("A Book of Mary", due in January 97) is released. Laurie King has captured the essence of Sherlock
Holmes and developed the character of Holmes and all the wonderful supporting characers (Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, Dr. Watson)
beyond the narrow limits of Doyle's stories. These two books
have developed such a folowing as to spawn an internet newsletter,
The Beekeeper's Holmes Page, and a weekly digest, RUSS-L. DON'T MISS THIS BOOK!
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