Sherlock Holmes has retired to the country to work on his magnum opus of detection and keep bees. But as he is following bees through the hills one day, he runs across the brilliant, damaged, somewhat prickly Mary Russell. When she deduces what he is doing, and shocks him by solving his current bee tracking mystery for him, a complicated and intellectually stimulating relationship is born. Mary becomes Holmes' apprentice and friend, and of course Scotland Yard eventually calls Holmes out of retirement on a desperately important case.
The only thing better than finding this book was discovering that it's a whole series. Laurie R. King weaves smart mysteries that are worthy successors to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classics. I think the character of Holmes is pitch perfect- that King does a convincing job of peeking in on Holmes the man without revealing too much, distorting his character, or dissolving into sappiness. Of course, giving Holmes a female apprentice lends the series a distinctly feminist flavor in the sense that King quite clearly believes that women can be just as observant, intelligent, and scholarly as men, but I never felt like Mary Russell as a character stomps Holmes or men in general. I couldn't put it down, especially once the plot thickens and Russell and Holmes set off solving mysteries together.
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