Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Justice Hall

By Laurie R. King

JUSTICE HALL is the sixth book in the series about Sherlock Holmes and his wife Mary Russell. Yes, a much older Sherlock Holmes, now in his fifties, has taken on an apprentice and a wife, in the much younger Mary Russell. The stories are told from Mary's viewpoint, as she and Sherlock work together to solve cases.

This one reunites Mary and Sherlock with two former friends, but times find them much changed. When Mary and Sherlock knew them, they knew them as Ali and Muhammad, two Beduins who helped them travel through Palestine on a secret mission for Mycroft. At the time Sherlock had his suspicions that the two brothers were not originally Arab as they appeared. And indeed they were not. Now, Ali turns up on the door begging help for Muhammad and looking and sounding like a very proper English gentleman. The problem that Ali needs help with so desperately is the fact that circumstances have demanded that Muhammad resume his old life as Marsh Hughenfort and the death of the heir to the title has made him the seventh Duke. Mary and Sherlock travel to Justice Hall and find a very unhappy man determined to do his duty, even though being away from his beloved desert is killing him. When it becomes clear that they will not be able to change his mind, Sherlock and Mary set out to help by providing Marsh with support during the difficult time and begin investigating the rather suspicious death of the young heir, executed for cowardice during World War I, and the set out to prove whether or not Marsh's heir, the son of his brother, is actually his son. More and more mysteries enter and then someone tries to kill Marsh. And the game is afoot.

Laurie E. King has written another great addition to her rather improbable mystery series that takes a very much different look at Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is still the Sherlock we know and love and yet different. Mary is charming and a very unique modern woman, a true heroine. JUSTICE HALL is very worth reading.

Reviewed by Linda Suzane, June 5, 2002.

Justice Hall
By Laurie R. King
Bantam Books
Copyright April 2002
ISBN 0-556-11113-2
Series: Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
Genre: Suspense
Justice Hall by Laurie R. King