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A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King
Amazon.com Sherlock Holmes and his scholarly companion Mary Russell are caught up in an exciting mystery when an archaeologist leaves them with a treasured find, a papyrus supposedly written by Mary Magdalene. When the archaeoligist winds up dead and someone attempts to make off with the artifact, Holmes and Russel become embroiled in a rollicking story filled with political intrigue and highbrow sleuthing. The level of writing hasn't been higher in this Laurie King series. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Reader Reviews A Study In Mashochism, September 21, 2003 Reviewer: carlacmd from Terre Haute I can't believe I got suckered again. I'd promised myself I wasn't going to waste my time with another Laurie King novel, but I grabbed the book to take sailing. In retrospect, drowning would have been preferable. First, the plot... you need to be a detective to find it. Second, the characters... Doesn't this author have an editor? If you're an ardent old-time feminist without otherwise a life (or relationship) of your own, you may rave about the one dimensional characters. King's males are shallow blackguards, except for her masturbatory famtasy of Holmes, varying between emotionally distant and pliantly submissive. Blech. That's not a man and it certainly wasn't Holmes. For the third (and last, I swear) time in as many books, I find myself wondering if King has ever read any of the Doyle Canon. Third, the setting... I recall one review of A Monstrous Regiment of Women which said King's Victorian era was populated by American 1970's feminists. She got that right. It's always a challege for period authors to place their characters without imbuing them with the authors' "modern" politics and philosphy. Obviously, King missed that lesson in class and still hasn't made it up. (And I loved the review that instead recommended Beavis and Butthead.) And that's really the problem. In the early days of "women's liberation", we had underground newsletters and newspapers like Rat, many that published feminist fiction, much of it pretty awful. Some of us have moved forward, some haven't, but now those that haven't waste our trees and time with tripe masquerading as mainstream "literature" instead of the fodder for those long-gone newsletters. I buried the book at sea and prayed it doesn't wash ashore.
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