Laurie R. King

Page Updated: 05/03/03

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Laurie R. King - Page 2

The Birth of a New Moon

A Letter of Mary

With Child

A Monstrous Regiment of Women

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

First British Edition HarperCollins (1999)

The Birth of a New Moon
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill

Terrifying, gripping and emotionally complex, The Birth of a New Moon is the stunning new psychological thriller from the award-winning Laurie King.
Anne Waverly, sometime FBI consultant, lives with the curse of a tragic past - the horrific deaths of her husband and beloved daughter Abby in a mass suicide pact. No one knows what she has suffered better than Glen McCarthy, an FBI expert in cult behaviour:
As a professor of new religious movements, Anne is called upon by McCarthy over the years to help solve certain FBI cases, and Anne has never refused him. Until now.
But then Anne finds she can't say no to this particular case: a religious community out in the desert that looks as though it has the seeds of
dangerous fervour. Slowly Anne works her way into the life of the group, and there meets two children, one of whom reminds her strongly of Abby, and suddenly she finds herself involved at a level that could be fatal
'Brilliantly written, intriguing and wholly absorbing.' T. J. Binyon, Evening Standard

First British Edition HarperCollins (1999)

Paperback - HarperCollins (2001)

A Letter of Mary
A Letter of Mary is the third in the acclaimed series chronicling the unlikely partnership between Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, his apprentice.
It is August 1923 and all is quiet in the Holmes household in Sussex. Mary Russell works on academic research while Sherlock Holmes conducts malodorous chemistry experiments. But the peace comes crashing down when a figure from Mary's past enters their lives: Dorothy Ruskin, an amateur archaeologist recently returned from the Holy Land, pays the couple a visit, bringing with her a gift - a charming inlaid box containing a tattered roll of stained papyrus.
The evening following their meeting, Miss Ruskin dies in a traffic accident that Holmes and Mary soon prove was murder. But what was the motivation? Was it the inlaid box holding the manuscript? Or the woman's involvement in the volatile politics of the Holy Land? Or could it have been the scroll itself, a deeply troubling letter apparently written by Mary Magdalene that contains a biblical bombshell…

First British Edition HarperCollins (1997)

With Child
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
A terrifying and moving study of innocence in peril from award winning crime writer Laurie King . . .
In With Child, the third in King's extraordinary series, San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli becomes involved in a nightmare that begins in her off-duty life and turns into a crime for which she feels herself responsible. . .
As the story begins, Kate is alone in the house she shares with her partner, Lee, who, slowly recovering from the gunshot wound that crippled her in A Grave Talent, decides that she must spend time on her own - a move that Kate can only interpret as rejection. Lonely, angry and confused, Kate befriends the bright, quirky twelve-year-old Jules, and when the girl's parents go on a trip, Kate agrees to care for her.
But when Kate decides to drive with Jules to northern Washington, to 'drop in' to the farm where Lee is staying, events spiral out of control. During the trip, in a rural area where a serial killer has been victimising young girls, Jules disappears. . .
In its emotional impact on the novel's complex characters, Laurie King's story has the intensity and depth of a superb literary work, spiced with the harrowing suspense of a desperate effort to rescue a young girl in mortal danger.

First British Edition HarperCollins (1997)

A Monstrous Regiment of Women
See Review by Margaret Murphy
In A Monstrous Regiment of Women, Mary Russell (able apprentice detective to the great but ageing Sherlock Holmes ) is becoming a skilled sleuth in her own right.
After a tedious visit from relatives, Mary is looking for respite in London when she comes across a friend from Oxford. The young woman introduces Mary to her currant enthusiasm, the strange and enigmatic Margery Childe, leader of 'The New Temple of God'. It appears to be a charismatic sect involved in the post-World War One suffrage movement, with a feminist slant on Christianity. Intrigued and curious, Mary begins to wonder if the New Temple is a front for something more sinister.
When a series of murders claims several of the movement’s wealthy young female volunteers and principal contributors, Mary, with Holmes in the background, starts to investigate, but events spiral out of control as the situation becomes ever more desperate, and Mary’s search plunges her into the worst danger she has yet faced. . .
'A novel which challenges the clichés of history' Independent
'A diverting book' James Melville, Ham & High
'As audacious as it is entertaining and moving' Chicago Tribune
'Delightful… King has created a fitting partner for the Great Detective' Publisher's Weekly
'Worthy and welcome, with power to charm the most grizzled Baker Street Irregular' New York Daily News

The Beekeeper's Apprentice
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
Move over Dr Watson … Award-winning crime novelist Laurie King turns her imagination to what would have happened if Sherlock Holmes’s partner in detection had been an intelligent, twentieth-century woman …
What would happen if Sherlock Holmes, that perfect example of Victorian man, were to come face to face with a twentieth-century female? If she grew to be a partner worthy of his great talents? In The Beekeeper's Apprentice Laurie King tells the story of Mary Russell who, in 1914, meets a retired beekeeper on the Sussex Downs. His name is Sherlock Holmes and while he may be a pompous, smug misogynist, the Great Detective is no fool, and can spot a fellow intellect even in a fifteen-year-old woman.
So at first informally, then consciously, he takes Mary on as his apprentice. They work on a few small local cases, then on a larger and more urgent investigation and all the time Mary is developing as a detective in her own right, with the benefit of the knowledge and experience of her mentor and friend.
And then the sky opens on them, and they find themselves the targets of a slippery, murderous and apparently all-knowing adversary. Together they devise a plan to trap their enemy - it just might save their lives but will it kill off their relationship?
"A carnival of sheer delight … the novel builds to a rousing climax, riveting and suspenseful." Chicago Sun-Times
'Civilised, ingenious and engrossing. Best of all it has heart' Literary Review
'A tantalising novel, both for the intelligence and charm of the flirtation as well as for the intrigue of plot' San Francisco Chronicle