Thomas Ray's Reviews > Castle Shade

Sherlock Holmes with his new partner, Mary Russell. Good stories. Likeable characters. Each book is distinct: set in many and varied physical, social, religious, linguistic, and literary environments. WWI, anti-colonial struggles, natural disasters; prominent real people, occasional fictional characters of other authors. Insightful and fun! Seventeen novels plus short stories, and they keep getting more compelling:

Later books build on, and have spoilers for, earlier ones. Read them in this order:

1 background, optional. A Study in Scarlet (novel, 1887, introduces Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. John Watson), The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter (short story, 1893, introduces Mycroft Holmes), The Adventure of the Final Problem (short story, 1893, introduces Professor James Moriarty), The Adventure of the Empty House (short story, 1903, set in 1894, explains Holmes' doings 1891–1894), and The Adventure of the Lion's Mane (short story, 1926, Holmes has retired to Sussex), by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930). Some familiarity with the Conan Doyle stories makes the Holmes-and-Russell books more enjoyable.
1. The Beekeeper's Apprentice (1994. Events 1915.04.08–1919.07, England, Wales, Palestine). Sherlock Holmes (b. early 1861), retired to the East Sussex Downs, meets young Mary Russell (b. 1900.01.02), who becomes his apprentice. Purported to have been written by Mary Russell in the late 1980s. Holmes on 1915.04.08 says he's 54, and on 1920.12.26 that he's 59. Holmes lives half a mile from the sea (book 9, The Language of Bees, chapters 1 & 8) near Birling Gap, in East Sussex, https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8,0.0... northeast of the mouth of the Cuckmere river: puts him about at the end of Crowlink Lane, southwest of Friston.

5. O Jerusalem (1999. Events 1918.12.30–1919.02, Palestine). Fifth-written and fifth-published Mary Russel/Sherlock Holmes novel, fleshes out an interlude in book one. It's also a prequel for book six. If you're reading the Kindle edition of /O Jerusalem/, start at the cover. Before the table of contents are: Map of Jerusalem and of Palestine; Arabic Words and Phrases; A Note about Chapter Headings; "Editor's Remarks," "Author's Prologue."
Quiz for O Jerusalem: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...

2. A Monstrous Regiment of Women (1995. Events 1920.12.26–1921.06, England.)

Mary Russel's War (2016. Events 1906–1925. Ten short stories. Stories #1–9 can be read after book 2, A Monstrous Regiment of Women. Story #10, Stately Holmes, should be read after book 12, Garment of Shadows.)
"The Marriage of Mary Russell" (2016. Events 1921.02), short story #4 of 10 in /Mary Russell's War/ (2016).
Ozymandias (1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792–1822): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymand...
Quiz for The Marriage of Mary Russell: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
"Mary's Christmas" (2014), short story #1 of 10 in /Mary Russell's War/, (2016). Mary reminisces about her childhood (1906–1913.12)
Background for "Mary Russell's War," very optional. The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist (short story, 1903), and The Valley of Fear (novel, 1915), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930); Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman (1899), E.W. Hornung (1866–1921) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
"Mary Russell's War" or "My War Journal" (2015. Events of 1914.08.04–1915.04.08), short story #2 of 10 in the collection, /Mary Russell's War/ (2016). Includes spoilers for The Valley of Fear.
"Beekeeping for Beginners" (2011. Events 1915.04.08–1915.05), short story #3 of 10 in /Mary Russell's War/ (2016).
Quiz for Beekeeping for Beginners: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
"Mrs. Hudson's Case" (1997. Events 1918.09–1918.10), short story #5 of 10 in /Mary Russell's War/ (2016).
"A Venomous Death" (2009. Set in October, in or after 1921), very short story #6 in /Mary Russell's War/ (2016).
"Birth of a Green Man" (2010. Set sometime between June 1917--see book 10, The God of the Hive, chapter 52--and September 1924), very short story #7 in /Mary Russell's War/ (2016).
"My Story, or, The Case of the Ravening Sherlockians" (2009, Events of 1989–2009--note that Sherlock Holmes, born early in 1861, is 148 years old in 2009, and still alive. He must still be alive, as his obituary hasn't appeared in The Times of London. Conan Doyle tried to kill him in 1891, and his fans wouldn't have it.), short story #8 in /Mary Russell's War/ (2016).
"A Case in Correspondence" (2010, Events of 1992.05.03–1992.05.19), short story #9 in /Mary Russell's War/ (2016).

3 background, very optional. Almost any Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) mystery.
3. A Letter of Mary (1996. Events of 1923.08.14–1923.09.08, England.)

4 background, optional. The Hound of the Baskervilles (novel, 1902), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930).
4. The Moor (1998. Events of 1923.10–1923.11, Dartmoor, Devon, England.) Includes spoilers for The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The moor is Dartmoor, in southwest England, setting of The Hound of the Baskervilles: (view spoiler)["a high, wide bowl of granite, some 350 square miles covered with a thin, peaty soil and scattered with outcrops of stone. ... The floor of the moor is a thousand feet above the surrounding Devonshire countryside, from which it rises abruptly." [p. 23 of 307, chapter 2.] Parts of Dartmoor get up to 80 inches (2 meters) of rain per year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmoor Here's a photo of Aune Mire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmoo...
A map of Dartmoor is at the front of the print book, but at the back of the Kindle version, just before the "praise for other Mary Russell mysteries." Here's google maps:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Dar...
Effects of acidic bog water: Holmes says few skeletons have been found in the bogs, and speculates that the acid dissolves them [21%, Chapter 5]. Could be. However: Acidic bog water destroys plants but preserves animal skin and leather, hair and wool, horn and fingernails. Alkaline lake mud destroys animal remains, but preserves plant material such as wood and flaxen thread. —Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, Elizabeth Wayland Barber, pp. 86, 90.
We learn that Holmes' friend Dr. John Watson is 5 years older than Holmes. (hide spoiler)]
Quiz for The Moor: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...

6. background, very optional. The Purloined Letter (1844), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
6. Justice Hall. (2002. Events 1923.11.05–1923.12.26, England, France, Canada.) Includes spoilers for O Jerusalem, as does this:
Introduces (view spoiler)[ William Maurice (Lord Marsh) Hughenfort, b. 1876, and Alistair Gordon St. John Hughenfort, b. 1881. (hide spoiler)]
Quiz for Justice Hall: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...

7 background, optional, but good. Kim (novel, 1901), Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Online:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kim
7 background, optional. Hind Swaraj (1901), Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948). Online: https://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/hind_sw...
7. The Game. (2004. Events 1924.01.01–1924.02, Northern India: Simla in Himchal Pradesh; Khalka in Haryana; Khanpur in the Punjab.) The game is international espionage, called the Great Game by Kipling in Kim.
Introduces Kimball O'Hara, b. 1875.
(view spoiler)[The text tells us that our border kingdom is north of Pathankot, Punjab--which would put it in Jammu and Kashmir, maybe in the direction of Srinagar. But the map in the book shows it in the vicinity of Mingora, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan.
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4,74,... (hide spoiler)]
Quiz for The Game: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...

8 background, very optional. The Maltese Falcon (novel, 1930), Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961). Sam Spade short stories: "A Man Called Spade," 1932, "Too Many Have Lived," 1932, "They Can Only Hang you Once," 1932, all collected in A Man Called Spade and Other Stories, 1944, and in Nightmare Town, 1994; and "A Knife Will Cut for Anybody," published 2013. Continental Op stories: The Big Book of the Continental Op, 2017, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
8 background, optional. Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882–1943 (1994), Sucheng Chan (1941–).
8 background, entirely optional but well worth reading: Right Ho, Jeeves (novel, 1934), P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975), online at:
http://www.online-literature.com/pg-w...
Or any similar Wodehouse--Right Ho, Jeeves, is particularly good.
8. Locked Rooms (2005. Events 1924.03–1924.05, San Francisco.)
Eighteen years after the San Francisco earthquake and fires, April 18, 1906. (view spoiler)[The police feared riot and disorder so much, it was ordered that any person caught looting would be shot on sight--with no suggestion as to how the soldier or policeman might tell if the person in his sights was a looter or a rightful home-owner. (chapter 8.) (hide spoiler)]
Quiz for Locked Rooms: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...

9 background, optional. A Scandal in Bohemia (short story, 1891) and The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter (short story, 1893), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930).
9 background, very optional. The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902, William James (1842–1910).
9. The Language of Bees (2009. Events 1924.08–1924.08.30 and 1919.08–1920.03, England, Scotland.) ends "to be continued" in 10. The God of the Hive (2010. Events 1924.08.29–1924.10.31, England, Scotland). Includes spoilers for A Scandal in Bohemia (1891) and The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter (1893).
(view spoiler)[Introduces Damian Adler, b. 1894.09.09.
Lyrics of John Barleycorn, as collected by Robert Burns, 1782: http://www.robertburns.org/works/27.s...
Meaning of einen Vogel haben: https://www.expath.de/useful-german-i...
Richard Lionheart and Blondel: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Tawny owl: https://ebird.org/wi/species/tawowl1
(hide spoiler)]
Quiz for The Language of Bees: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Quiz for The God of the Hive: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...

11 background, optional. The Pirates of Penzance (comic opera, 1879), W.S. Gilbert (1836–1911)
11. Pirate King (2011. Events 1924.11.06–1924.11.30, Lisbon; Morocco.)
Heath Robinson (a kind of British Rube Goldberg): https://www.pinterest.com/drumseddie5...

12. Garment of Shadows (2012. Events 1924.12–1925.01, Morocco.)
Quiz for Garment of Shadows: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...

13. Dreaming Spies. (2015. Events 1925.03–1925.04, 1924.04, Japan & Oxfordshire). This one ends in confusion: it's unclear what happens.
Thomas Carlyle: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

14 NECESSARY background for The Murder of Mary Russell: THE GLORIA SCOTT (1893): online here, in print and audio, https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/40/the-mem... 8400-word short story in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle. The story, its characters and events, are the foundation of the Mary Russell book, which gives a different perspective on them. Holmes says it's his first case. (In Conan Doyle's telling it's set in about 1885; yet he's been in Baker Street since about 1881. Conan Doyle is careless about dates. Laurie R. King takes trouble to make them as self-consistent as she can.)
14 background, optional. His Last Bow (1917), The Five Orange Pips (1891), A Scandal in Bohemia (1891), The Man with the Twisted Lip (1891), The Sign of the Four (1890), The Adventure of the Final Problem (1893), Arthur Conan Doyle. (Events and/or characters of these stories are mentioned in The Murder of Mary Russell.)
14 background, entirely optional, but good stories: the Horatio Hornblower stories by C. S. Forester: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio...
14 background, optional. Oliver Twist (1838 novel), Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
14 background, optional. The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
14. The Murder of Mary Russell. (2016. Events 1925.05.13–1925.05.18 and backstory 1852–1915.04.08 Britain, Atlantic, Australia.) Has spoilers for The Gloria Scott and The Five Orange Pips by Conan Doyle, and for The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe. We find out more about Holmes' housekeeper, Clara Hudson, b. 1856.05.09 (chapter 39), and Billy Mudd, b. about 1872 (chapter 27: age 8 in October 1880), and (view spoiler)[Sam Hudson, b. 1879.08.20. (hide spoiler)] Clara Hudson meets Sherlock Holmes 1879.09.29 Sunday (chapter 19). Dr. John Watson comes to Baker Street, 1881.01. 1891.04 Holmes disappears at the Reichenbach Falls. 1894.04 Holmes reappears. 1901.01.22 Queen Victoria dies. 1903 Holmes relocates to East Sussex.
14. Quiz for The Murder of Mary Russell: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...

15 background, optional. The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax (1911), Arthur Conan Doyle.
15 background, optional. Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887), Nellie Bly (1864–1922)
15 background, optional. The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), H.G. Wells (1866–1946)
15. The Island of the Mad. (2018. Events 1925.06 Venice, and backstory 1922–)
Pierrot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot
Julian and Maddalo (1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792–1822): https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

16 background, optional. The Purloined Letter (1844), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
16. Riviera Gold. (2020. Events 1925.05–1925.08; backstory 1877.04) Has spoilers for The Gloria Scott by Arthur Conan Doyle and The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe. Continues the story of Mrs. Hudson from novel 14, The Murder of Mary Russell.

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