I loved this book to pieces, and as I read it I often felt a smile on my face. Sherlock Holmes purists might well howl, but as a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle myself, I thought King's knowledge and affection for the original was palpable. The book opens with an "Editor's Preface" from King disavowing authorship and claiming the manuscripts turned up mysteriously on her doorstep. She claimed that even as a mystery writer she'd be chagrined to take responsibility for "the farfetched idea of Sherlock Holmes taking on a smart-mouthed, half-American, fifteen-year-old feminist sidekick."
Ah, but she pulls it off with such panache! That sidekick, Mary Todd Russell, is fifteen when she meets the then 54-year-old Holmes in 1915. In her "Author's Note" Russell explains any discrepancies: So yes, I freely admit that my Holmes is not the Holmes of Watson...The subject is essentially the same; it is the eyes and the hands of the artist that change. And that change is that Mary is fully Holmes equal in intellect, while she portrays Watson as good-hearted but dim. I think she (and King) are rather unfair to Watson in that.
However, that's a minor criticism in a book that otherwise was such a clever, enjoyable romp and succeeded as historical fiction, as mystery, as romance (Russell is 18 by the book's end when we get a glimmer of that) and as an alternate universe Holmes novel. I actually read other Mary Russell books before coming to read this one, the first in the series. Every single one I have read--my first was A Letter of Mary--has been a pleasure.
