Justice Hall by
Laurie R. King
hbk out December 02
Published by HarperCollins
at £18.99
Laurie King is one of the band of American-domiciled authors who base
some of their books in England, but unlike some - notably Martha Grimes -
she doesn't put a foot wrong in either the idioms and nuances of the language
or the ambience of English life. I know nothing of her background, but
suspect that she is either a British expatriate or has spent a very great deal of
her time here. Also like some other lady writers from the USA, she seems
fascinated by - and very knowledgeable about - the English aristiocracy,
giving highly detailed accounts of their life style, from the domestic
arrangements of their houses to their fondness for the wholesale massacre of
tame birds. Justice Hall is the sixth of her Mary Russell stories, based on the highly
unlikely premise that the dour, drug-taking misogynist Sherlock Holmes, in
his bee-keeping dotage, married his dolly-bird assistant young enough to be
his grand-daughter. Having swallowed that hurdle with a gulp, the reader is
actually faced with a beautifully-written story which revolves around an
aristocratic Berkshire family in the years following the First Great War. As
often happens with any later book of a series, there are many allusions to
events in previous volumes, which are rather obscure to those have not read
them, but the knub of the matter is that two cousins, one having recently
inherited a Dukedom, return home to a vast mansion, after twenty years in
the Middle East, where they have been doing a Lawrence of Arabia act,
living as Bedouins.
Very unhappy at the obligation to continue the family line that has been
around since 1066, the Duke is desperate to find a reputable heir, so that he
can slope off back to Arabia - so his cousin calls in Holmes and Russell to
save the Duke's sanity. The very substantial wordage is devoted to a sort of
'Kind Hearts and Coronets' story, where family skulduggery is removing
human obstacles to the succession, particularly the framing of a young
subaltern on the Western Front, so that he was disposed of by a firing squad.
The odd thing about the book is that to the best of my recollection, the name
'Sherlock' is never used - and Holmes remains very much second-fiddle to
his young wife, through whom the whole story is seen, written in the first
person. In fact, he stays a rather shadowy, cardboard figure throughout - and
there is one very peculiar mention of 'Conan Doyle's detective', which
brands the character as being fictitious. The book would have been just as
entertaining if Mary's husband had been private eye Bill Smith, rather than
bring in the impossible concept of it being Sherlock Holmes.
Still, the excellent prose, rather formal and old-fashioned (which suits the
alleged circumstances), is a delight to read, though perhaps some of the
rather prolix descriptive material could have done with a bit of Tippex.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
