Recommended by John Fielding, friend

I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Mary Russell, a teenaged genius who matches wits and joins forces with the "retired" Sherlock Holmes. She's a character I'd like to spend more time with. The story is well-plotted, and exciting in all the right ways, but I was totally bewildered by the mechanics of the climactic scene, and that might influence my decision to carry on with this series. ( )

Sherlock Holmes fanfic. Entertaining. I seem to remember a few bits toward the beginning that were too embarrassingly Mary Sue to read, but it settles down after a hundred or so pages. Interesting approach to story-telling: the speed of events changes wildly throughout the book---but very true to what it's supposed to be, which is a memoir. ( )

The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #1)by Laurie R. King (Goodreads Author) 4.08   Rating details   55,400 Ratings   4,984 ReviewsLong retired, Sherlock Holmes quietly pursues his study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. He never imagines he would encounter anyone whose intellect matched his own, much less an audacious teenage girl with a penchant for detection. Miss Mary Russell becomes Holmes' pupil and quickly hones her talent for deduction, disguises and danger. But when an elusive villain enters the picture, their partnership is put to a real test.

(2007) Pretty good take on Sherlock Holmes several years after he has ?retired? who takes on a young female protege Mary Russell who turns out to be a very good complement to Holmes's talents. Book is really a collection of short stories and a novella which all lead into one another with the ultimate case of solving who is trying to kill Holmes. Turns out is his nemesis's (Moriarity) daughter.(PW)Sherlock Holmes takes on a young, female apprentice in this delightful and well-wrought addition to the master detective's casework. In the early years of WW I, 15-year-old American Mary Russell encounters Holmes, retired in Sussex Downs where Conan Doyle left him raising bees. Mary, an orphan rebelling against her guardian aunt's strictures, impresses the sleuth with her intelligence and acumen. Holmes initiates her into the mysteries of detection, allowing her to participate in a few cases when she comes home from her studies at Oxford. The collaboration is ignited by the kidnapping in Wales of Jessica Simpson, daughter of an American senator. The sleuthing duo find signs of the hand of a master criminal, and after Russell rescues the child, attempts are made on their lives (and on Watson's), with evidence piling up that the master criminal is out to get Holmes and all he holds dear. King ( A Grave Talent ) has created a fitting partner for the Great Detective: a quirky, intelligent woman who can hold her own with a man renowned for his contempt for other people's thought processes.