Locked Rooms: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes (Ma [Import] [Paperback]

Laurie R. King (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Allison & Busby; New Ed edition (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749082844
• ISBN-13: 978-0749082840
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,290,691 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

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Dreams are speech from the unconscious mind.", July 2, 2005

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Locked Rooms (Mary Russell Novels) (Hardcover)

"Locked Rooms" is Laurie King's eighth Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mystery, and it is one of her best. After spending time in India and Japan, Holmes and his young wife set sail for San Francisco, California in 1924. The ostensible reason for their visit is so that Mary can sign papers connected with the estate left by her parents, who died ten years earlier in a tragic car crash. However, Mary has an even more urgent motive for revisiting her childhood home. She has been having disturbing nightmares, and she would like to exorcise the emotional demons that have been tormenting her.

In the three years that she has been married, Mary has revealed few details about her childhood to her husband. Her past is a confusing and frightening maze that she has been extremely reluctant to navigate. Mary knows that her parents lived through the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, but why does she have no memory of being with them during that time? Why does she blame herself for the accident that took the lives of her mother, father, and younger brother? Finally, what is the significance of Mary's recurring dreams about flying objects, a faceless man, and a house with locked rooms to which only she has the key?

Laurie King's novel addresses these and other questions against the backdrop of one of the world's most scenic cities. The author's colorful and beautifully detailed descriptive writing brings Prohibition-era San Francisco to life, with its clanging cable cars, its wealthy mansions, and its breathtaking waterfront views. "Locked Rooms" is a multi-layered and richly textured novel. It is also a satisfying puzzle in which Russell uncovers some long buried family secrets and reexamines her assumptions about her parents' deaths. King provides a close look at the inner workings of the Holmes' unconventional marriage. In addition, "Locked Rooms" gives the reader a mini-history of the San Francisco earthquake, with a well-researched account of how this devastating event affected the city's traumatized residents.

Readers will enjoy the book's deliciously complex plot as well as the large and diverse cast of characters. Among them are Mary's childhood friend, Flo Greenfield, who has become a child of the jazz age, Tom Long, the son of the faithful Chinese couple who worked for Mary's parents, and the writer Dashiell Hammett, who helps Holmes with his sleuthing. King uses an unusual narrative device that presents a dual perspective, both through Mary's eyes and the very different eyes of her husband.

"Locked Rooms" has it all--an exotic locale, engrossing characters, fascinating historical background, and a suspenseful, well-told story. Fans of Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell will be delighted and entertained by this solid entry in a very successful series.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Must reading for regulars. For irregulars? Not so sure., July 4, 2005

By 

Sharon Isch (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Locked Rooms (Mary Russell Novels) (Hardcover)

Mary Russell, the young wife of elderly Sherlock Holmes, is one of the mystery genre's most interesting and admirable inventions. But she spends three quarters of this book as a psychological basket case, not her usual brilliantly analytical self. And for that reason I recommend it only for series regulars, who will doubtless find that delving into the depths of their heroine's troubled past is worth the journey, even though it cedes all of the brainpower in the first three quarters of the book to Holmes.

Laurie King is a superb descriptive writer but lately her ratios of plot to description seem to me to be somewhat off. Her books first started feeling a bit under-plotted and over-padded to me with "Justice Hall." Then, a couple of years ago, I heard her speak at a book fair on the national Mall in Washington and she told us that her publishers push and push her to up her page counts and I got the impression she thinks that's a mistake. Me, too, although I must admit the descriptive writing about post-quake San Francisco is really superb here and King has created some intriguing new characters that I think you'll enjoy.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Weak Entry, August 9, 2005

By 

Log Cabin Pat (Hinsdale, IL USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Locked Rooms (Mary Russell Novels) (Hardcover)

I can see that there are definitely two camps in the reviews of this book: it's either the best in the series or just so-so. In my opinion, it's in the latter category. The reasons have been well-described by other reviewers; the plotting is weak, the book seems padded (especially with the memoirs of the Chinese servant), the main characters are seriously out-of character, and the dates regarding Mary's father joining the Army are confusing. The biggest problem, though, is that when you finally discover the secret behind her father's oh-so-mysterious actions and the family's death, what all those hundreds of pages have been building up to, the reason is just - laughable.

The best entries in this series - which in my opinion are The Moor, Oh Jerusalem, and The Game - are placed in an exotic locale. Apparently San Francisco is not exotic enough. However, there is a tidbit dropped about Russell and Holmes taking a brief sojourn in China on their way from India to the States, so I have hopes that that's where the next novel will take place.