Second Raquel Laing Investigation from Laurie R. King: Sept. 8

When I reviewed book one of this series in 2022, BACK TO THE GARDEN, author Laurie R. King was calling it a stand-alone. And I found that regrettable at the time.

Well, four years later, here comes a second! Laing works for the San Francisco Police Department. I've pre-ordered my copy. So for the moment, consider this a reminder that you might want to do the same.  My favorites of King's books are quirky picks within her Mary Russell series -- but that won't stop me from being excited about this new Laing sequel!

Brief Mention: Laurie R. King, BACK TO THE GARDEN

If you've been asking yourself whether the communes of the 1970s really were what you recall (or reall learning)--passionate about freedom, love, and justice, as well as drenched in music and hormones and surviving on the strength of good gardening and skilled planning--the new crime novel from Laurie R. King will be deeply reassuring!

Sidelined police inspector Raquel Laing tackles identifying a set of bones discovered at a long-ago California commune, now a serious historic and art attraction. She's racing the clock, because the suspected killer (highly psychopathic) is close to death and playing games with not revealing the names of the (gasp) seventeen women he admits to have slaughtered and buried in the state.

Readers will either love or hate King's choice of alternating time periods between the commune's heyday and Laing's investigation. I found it tolerable, for the sake of the acute insight into "those days" and the fervent beliefs that impelled decisions and lifestyles. The police procedural aspect of the novel, as Laing interviews one commune leader after another, reflects what a long and often unrewarding process this can be in real life. But Laing's own passions and her skills in reading emotions, lies, and truths are fascinating and highly believable. 

King has described this as a standalone. If so, that's a shame -- Laing as an investigator, with her quirks and questions, would make a great foundation for an enjoyable series, and King is expert at crafting long-term pathways of detective work and personal growth. She's accessible via social media; if you feel the same way after reading BACK TO THE GARDEN, drop her a note to encourage a sequel (I will).

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

With Secrets and Revelation: DREAMING SPIES, Laurie R. King

If you're a Laurie R. King fan -- and I am -- you probably had DREAMING SPIES on your list earlier this year, and purchased it soon after its release in mid February. I did, too, but I knew there was no rush to review it, so I tucked it away to enjoy later.

So, a few reasons to read (and collect) this 13th "novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes":

* For anyone who's followed Laurie R. King's writing, from the Kate Martinelli (San Francisco) homicide series to the eerie and compelling Stuyvesant & Grey books to the very popular Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes sequence, reading DREAMING SPIES is the best way to discover which direction King's creativity has taken this time, and how she's tying together her many interests. Plus, is her storytelling changing with time? My own answer to this: Yes, she's separating the thread of violent crime from the thread of puzzle solving. Although her 2006 release, The Art of Detection, was a deliberate (and entertaining) effort to tie the Martinelli series to the Russell/Holmes books, it left out some of the dark threat of the early Martinelli books. That darkness now prowls in the Stuyvesant & Gray books instead (so far, just two of them: Touchstone in 2007 and The Bones of Paris in 2013).

* Holmes fans who are not deadly serious in their passions can enjoy the notion of Holmes as a much older man, married to his young student Mary Russell -- and in DREAMING SPIES, Russell asserts her equality to Holmes in terms of deftness with disguise, quick planning, even martial arts. In fact, the premise of the story, which takes the pair into Japan in 1924 to assist a ninja (or more than one ninja!) and other politically significant Japanese figures, is that neither Russell nor Holmes speaks Japanese or has expertise in the "customs of the country." Hence their decision to explore, and then assist, puts them on a level playing field. Actually that means Russell will dominate a bit more than usual, since she's younger and by gender better adapted to the schemes involved this time.

*King is such a good storyteller that this, like her earlier books, is an entertaining diversion with page-turner appeal. She's also a top-notch researcher, so don't let the unexpected appearance of, say, a woman who is a ninja turn up any doubts: Sure enough, there's history to back the concept, with an early Japanese woman becoming an espionage-oriented ninja in the 16th century, running her own network. Russell is a bit too much of a loner to adapt to a network, but she's not going to let a spy who's younger than herself take over the scene! (Or is she?)

*If you've been reading any of the half dozen intriguing series of English mysteries racing into print on the World War I years and the years between the wars -- or even James Benn's World War II series with Billy Boyle -- this 1924/1925 setup will enhance what you're already consuming, adding details of Europe, the United States, and Asia, particularly Japan. It's a time-honored way to enjoy adding history to your plate.

These Russell/Holmes books don't feel like the original Sherlock Holmes tales -- they leave a very different taste in the mind -- and that's the drawback to reading them. The depressed genius of the Conan Doyle character wouldn't balance all that well with Russell's animation and enthusiasms, I think. So, as with the earlier books in the series, enter lightly, for the fun of it. (My one regret for DREAMING SPIES was the near-absence of Holmes's usual remarkable insights ... and with it, I thought, a bit less insight on Russell's part, too. But perhaps they were both overwhelmed with learning that new language, and all that comes with it.)

Best of all, I came away from the book relaxed, taking joy in the twists and resolution of the story, and more attentive to the history and cultures on display. Fun! I recommend reading it -- provided the "reasons" above fit your state of mind as you open the book.

Well Worth Reading: THE BONES OF PARIS, Laurie R. King

Laurie R. King's latest book came out in 2013 (she has another coming out this May, though -- author website here); it's THE BONES OF PARIS and I didn't rush to read it, knowing that her many fans would carry the book along, and at her level of the mysteries field, there are only a few publications whose word really matters in terms of how readers rush to purchase copies.

But I enjoy both strands of King's work -- her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, and her California police procedurals. So I made sure that my winter reading did include this one ... and it  belongs to neither of those series, but instead is a sequel to Touchstone, which I fear I somehow missed reading (I'll catch up with it soon).

THE BONES OF PARIS fits into the era King's explored from so many directions in her Russell/Holmes books, thought, as it opens in the fall of 1929 with a missive that reaches Bennett Grey in England. Readers of the earlier book will know immediately why the letter and enclosed photos have been sent to Grey -- the rest of us will catch up slowly, as we begin to understand the strange catastrophes and losses that tie together the man in England and a missing-persons investigator, Harris Stuyvesant, whom we meet in the next chapter in the heat of Paris's end-of-summer season, struggling with consequences of his ratty lifestyle and emotional sloppiness, while also trying to earn a living among the "beautiful people" of the expatriate community in Europe. A lot of what's wrong for him, and what goes wrong as he investigates, can easily be blamed on his own choices.

Yet a lot of the twisted nature of the arts community he finds himself investigating is a consequence of two very large factors: the damage done in France by the Great War, and the rebellious efforts of artists at the time to shake up reality, confront death and disaster, refuse to settle for comfort or attachment. The Surrealists make up the characters as well as the setting for King's exploration and Stuyvesant's investigation. King's interweaving of art and despair, loyalty and fractured love, make this "crime novel" simultaneously a deep and layered novel of that extended hold-your-breath season between the two major European wars. And she is generous with hints of the oncoming hostilities, even as her characters insist on heavy drinking and partying in their slice of "peace."

If you've been reading Charles Todd, or Jacqueline Winspear, or Pat Barker's "Regeneration" trilogy, pick up THE BONES OF PARIS. It may also be a good fit for you if you're an Alan Furst fan. And if you stop now and then to think about madness and art, about how new ideas emerge from darkness, about how evil overtakes good and how death fascinates, and how poets become murderers ... Don't come for tea, please. But all of this is in King's crime novel, and it's a darned good read.

Laurie R. King, GARMENT OF SHADOWS: A Morroccan Adventure

GARMENT OF SHADOWS is the 12th in the series that Laurie R. King offers featuring Sherlock Holmes and his late-in-life wife Mary Russell. The book is a good read as an adventure, with voices that alternate between Russell -- King's principal protagonist -- and Holmes. Evoking the postwar feel of 1924 (with a second war yet to materialize), it takes place entirely in the "exotic" atmosphere of Morocco. At the time, the mountains and deserts and bustling cities of the relatively small Islamic nation were being contested for possession as a colony by both France and Spain (which is just across the Straits of Gibraltar from Morocco). In King's deft hands, the roles of tribal (native Moroccan; Berber and other) conflict are also painted into the picture, with leaders whose descent from the prophet Mohammed could be documented and recognized.

For series readers, the plot follows smoothly from Russell and Holmes's adventures in Palestine, and brings back some compelling characters, as well as the international intrigue that often brushes against the famous detective's life because of his brother Mycroft's service to England. And the opening premise of the book is intriguing: Russell has suffered a severe head injury and doesn't even know her name, let alone her role with the world's most famous detective. Her path toward reconnecting with Holmes is fraught with peril, and she doesn't have any idea why she's being threatened. But she knows, in the way that physical training remains in the body, how to protect herself with hurled missiles, deftly twisted knives, and quick lies.

I think the book is best read as a political adventure, and the abundance of recent novels featuring this time period (crime fiction from Charles Todd and Jacqueline Winspear; postwar recovery novels by Pat Barker) prepares many readers to enter the narrative with perspective and excitement. Descriptions of Moroccan locales abound, including charming ones of marketplaces as Russell attempts to find her way and her memories:

I came to a more lively quarter with open shops. Men sat in some, all wearing the same calf-length, rough-spun robes but occasionally layered with a heavier burnoose. They wore a variety of head-coverings: Some had loosely wrapped lengths of cloth, others wore snug turbans that revealed the crowns of their heads and a single thin plait, some had the rigid caps called tarboosh or fez. The women picking over displays of onions and greens were for the most part veiled, although some went freely bare-faced. They all haggled: over the cost of lemons, the measure of olives, the quality of tin cups. Colourful displays of garments and tools spilt onto the street.

But Russell-without-memories soon questions her own automatic actions of self-preservation: "First an acrobat, now a pick-pocket. Had I escaped from some traveling circus?"

I found the story enjoyable, and the complications and twists to be startling, with a denouement that takes argument over motivations through several layers of complexity and doubt. There's no question that this is a dandy adventure in a little-known country, and fun to read. Readers may also enjoy (as I do!) the many photos that King provides of Morocco within her blog and website, and especially her Pinterest board: http://www.laurierking.com.

On the other hand, there are two aspects I expected that aren't really in this book. One is the Holmes persona and themes; it would be hard to find any moment in the story that could raise a spirited argument among today's Baker Street Irregulars, for instance, because there is almost nothing that connects to the Sherlock Holmes of A. Conan Doyle's stories. Holmes in fact pursues almost no detection, and what Russell does is mostly dependent on secondary characters who show her what she needs to know or discover. It seems a pity to have abandoned the intrigue of detection, for the sake of the political maneuverings that add up to the "garment of shadows" of the title.

The second gap is the more serious for me, and will probably keep the book off my "keep this to re-read" shelf: There is very little depth of character to Russell here, and her struggles that King has portrayed so well in other titles of the series -- around being a woman in a man's world, defending her academic training, being a Jewish woman in a period of blatant anti-Semitism, working out the issues of a May-November marriage -- have vanished. The story remains on the surface, a travelogue with risks and escapes, rarely with inner conflict and certainly without character growth.

I know Laurie R. King can build more compelling books than this one; I hope her next, which is also in this series, will dip more deeply and give us more of the worthwhile struggle that takes a story into our own layers of inner questions and blossoming strengths.