Justice Hall [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 055367420X
• ISBN-13: 978-0553674200
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,717,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

New York Times bestselling crime writer Laurie R. King writes both series and standalone novels.

In the Mary Russell series (first entry: The Beekeeper's Apprentice), fifteen-year-old Russell meets Sherlock Holmes on the Sussex Downs in 1915, becoming his apprentice, then his partner. The series follows their amiably contentious partnership into the 1920s as they challenge each other to ever greater feats of detection.

The Kate Martinelli series, starting with A Grave Talent, concerns a San Francisco homicide inspector, her SFPD partner, and her life partner. In the course of the series, Kate encounters a female Rembrandt, a modern-day Holy Fool, two difficult teenagers, a manifestation of the goddess Kali and an eighty-year-old manuscript concerning'Sherlock Holmes.

King also has written stand-alone novels--the historical thriller Touchstone, A Darker Place, two loosely linked novels'Folly and Keeping Watch--and a science fiction novel, Califia's Daughters, under the pseudonym Leigh Richards.

King grew up reading her way through libraries like a termite through balsa before going on to become a mother, builder, world traveler, and theologian.

She has now settled into a genteel life of crime, back in her native northern California. She has a secondary residence in cyberspace, where she enjoys meeting readers in her Virtual Book Club and on her blog.

King has won the Edgar and Creasey awards (for A Grave Talent), the Nero (for A Monstrous Regiment of Women) and the MacCavity (for Folly); her nominations include the Agatha, the Orange, the Barry, and two more Edgars. She was also given an honorary doctorate from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

Check out King's website, http://laurierking.com/, and follow the links to her blog and Virtual Book Club, featuring monthly discussions of her work, with regular visits from the author herself. And for regular LRK updates, follow the link to sign up for her email newsletter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Mystery but Not a Holmes One, June 28, 2002

By 

Katherine Woodbury "Woody" (Portland, ME) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Justice Hall (Hardcover)

I enjoyed reading this latest installment of the Holmes-Russell saga. I was interested from beginning to end. And I found the WWI parts fascinating.

However . . . the book, for all its rather heavy exposition, felt rushed and not as thoughtful as the other Holmes-Russell books. It also felt, I hate to say this, a tad contrived, as if plots devices were being forced on each other rather than growing together naturally. Despite the charisma of Ali and Mahmoud (their relationship is the best part of the book), I felt I was skimming the surface of their motivations. Consequently, there were parts of the mystery that seemed too easily resolved.

And I missed Holmes. The book is not really about Holmes. Or even Mary. It is about Justice Hall and its occupants, and I will overstepped my bounds by suggesting that that is the story Laurie King wanted to write with Holmes-Russell added on as an afterthought.

My recommendation: Unless you are a fan/collector, wait for it in paperback.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A well written but disappointing sequel, March 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Justice Hall (Mary Russell Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm a fan of the first books of the series and I found that so far Ms. King had very skillfully reinvented Sherlock Holmes, giving him an active and attractive partner/equal in the person of his wife rather than a passive 'Watson' one. In this book however, nearly all the elements I liked in the original Holmes stories and the first Holmes/Russel ones are absent. No interesting plot, no real detection, no clever reasoning. Holmes is so much in the background and achieves so little that he's almost absent. Mary Russell does more (feminist) socializing than detection. Even the characters of Mahmoud and Ali, so interesting in 'Oh Jerusalem'are disappointing because they are 'overdone'. What's left is a somewhat interesting depiction of post WWI England, with a nice insight in the life of England's 'names' families and their estate (but if you like that go for 'Gosford Park' instead, at least you'll get a subtle plot), combined with a depiction of life in the trenches during WWI (pages and pages of a soldier's diary mostly unrelated to the plot) and a critcism of the execution for 'cowardice' of soldiers. And I almost forgot, the usually interesting game of Holmes the misogyn vs. Russel the feminist is almost absent, it has been supplanted by a more carricatural feminism, such as the character of 'the-wonderful-lesbian-who-did-it-once-with-a-friend-and-is-therefore-also-a-mother'.
Nero Wolfe would say 'pfui!', and so do I.
Not a bad book, but not a Holmes/Russel one, and definitely not a Holmes one.
Disappointing !

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Return!, March 28, 2002

By 

Elizabeth A Bryant (Elizabeth, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Justice Hall (Hardcover)

Wonderful! The return of the Hazr brothers! I have waited two years for this book, and it was worth every second of the wait!
A reluctant, yet dutiful, heir. A loyal and desperate cousin. A surprise wife. A murdered and righteous man. A secret. And, of course, the remarkable pair of Holmes and Russell.
This was a great read. I would have to rank it right up there with "O Jerusalem," just behind "The Beekeeper's Apprentice" and "A Monstrous Regiment of Women." I absolutely devoured every page of this great book!