Rachel & Rachel Read Mysteries

Dear Rachel,

So: This isn’t exactly what I expected.

I’m enjoying Knots and Crosses, I really am, but still—not quite what I expected.

I think my expectations might have been molded a little bit too much by the Tartan Noir tag. After all, when you hear those two words paired together, it sparks a very definitive mental image. And while I don’t want to say that I went intoKnots and Crosses imagining something akin to Philip Marlowe wearing a kilt, I would have to admit that, yes: I TOTALLY went intoKnots and Crosses imagining something akin to Philip Marlowe wearing a kilt.

Just imagine:

“It was about eleven o’clock in the mornin’ when the lass walked into me office. I was a wee bawsed, but she dinna seem to notice. Or maybe she just dinna care. Either way, she was still as braw as braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht.”

Doesn’t that sound like the start of an amazing book? YOU KNOW IT DOES.

But back to Knots and Crosses.

I think this might be the first detective novel I’ve read where the main character (i.e. the detective) comes across as more of an ensemble player rather than a star. I mean, usually, the literary detective doesn’t just function as a fictional character, but also as a guide. They’re the readers proxy in a world of intrigue, volunteering to step in do the dirty work for us so that we learn the outcome of the mystery without having to leave our couches. But that’s not the game Ian Rankin is playing, here. At this point in the book, we know more than his detective. We’ve learned about his brother’s illegal dealings and the killers’ M.O. before him, and something about that makes me feel guilty, in a way. 

Still, I have faith that Rankin knows what he’s doing. The story may be unfolding oddly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t unfolding well. Rebus is an intriguing character, and I don’t mind saying that he reminds me a lot of Jimmy McNulty from The Wire. Dedicated, but absent. Sharp, but broken. Curious, but drunk. Really, really drunk.

And now that I’ve mentionedThe Wire, I’ll go ahead and say that Rankin’s Edinburgh is painted just as richly as Simon’s Baltimore, and I very much appreciate that. Cities can make excellent characters if you capture them right.

I’m not a fan of Rebus’ daughter, though. Call me cold, but I won’t care if she’s next on the strangler’s hit list. Ugh, such an annoying brat.

Still Picturing Philip Marlowe in Kilt,

Rachel

P. S. do you think it’s pronounced gill like on a fish or Jill?

Dear Rachel,

I’m traveling today, so I brought “Knots and Crosses” with me to read on the plane. It is an excellent distraction from the fact that I REALLY have to visit the lav but the pilot won’t turn off the ‘fasten seat belts’ sign even though that was one of the smoothest flights I have ever experienced. I got about half-way through the book on my first leg and will probably finish it on my second leg.

In some ways, this is unlike any detective novel I have ever read. In my experience, the first book in a series is much more action packed, and focuses on the process of detecting much more. I was surprised at how much of the first half of the book had nothing to do with the girls being abducted (I suspect the journalist, by the way). It’s looking like John Rebus’s past will be the driving force behind the bad guy’s actions, so I do not feel it was time wasted, but even as I was engrossed in the story, the back of my mind kept screaming, “What about the girls?!?”

The dissonance between John’s religious faith and actions and guilt are also a compelling point to me. I want to get to know this guy more. He’s real. I can relate to him.

What do you think of him so far?

What do you think of his brother, Michael?

Thinking of how the title never would have worked in America,
Rachel

Dear Rachel, 

I’m sorry it has taken me (punches buttons on a calculator) more than a week to write back. Life is rather crazy for me. I have no energy at the end of the day, even for Laurie R. King. Please forgive me.

So. YES! EXCITING THINGS! I kinda wanted Ms. Moriarty to stay around longer too! She was chilling. But if you keep a nemesis around for too long the story line can get messy. I guess King was trying to avoid the mess. 

The thing that was the most interesting to me about this last bit was Mary’s description of her role during the ‘estrangement.’ 

I drove myself. I ate less, worked invariably into the early hours of morning, drank brandy now to help me sleep. I laughed when a librarian at the Bodleian suggested, only half joking, that I might move into the stacks, but my laughter was a polite, brittle noise. I became, in other words, more like Holmes than the man himself: brilliant, driven to a point of obsession, careless of myself, mindless of others, but without the passion and the deep-down, inbred love for the good in humanity that was the basis of his entire career. He loved the humanity that could not understand or fully accept him; I, in the midst of the same human race, became a thinking machine.

Here I present to you King’s summary of the character Sherlock Holmes.

I don’t know why it’s so important to me that this be King’s summary of Holmes instead of Russell’s. But it is. Maybe because she is the Holmes scholar. Something about that bit really struck me. 

I have nothing else for you. My brain is mush. 

No wait. I have more.

I did really love it again.  I remembered the moment in the library when Mary figures out the numbers and realizes that it said “Moriarty” and that her Maths tutor was the Moriarty, but I didn’t remember anything that came after it. So that part was utterly suspenseful and terrifying and dang, that lady is crazy and I lost hope and then saw the bright light of day that was Holmes’ sarcastic and brutal treatment of Patricia and his brain is AMAZING and then Mary gets shot and I realize I’ve been holding my breath.

Laurie R. King is a maz ing.

About Holmes handling Mary becoming a woman: remember how they had a fancy-dress-up party for her birthday? She came into the room all dressed up and fancy and beautiful and Holmes choked on his drink?

Yeah.

If you want to read more about THAT, you may want to read “Monstrous Regiment of Women” (which is technically book 2) next. If you want to read more about Palestine and the excursus, I would recommend that you read “O Jerusalem” (which is technically book 5, but takes place during book 1) next.

Or, it’s your turn to pick a book for us. 

So, what are we reading next?

Rachel

Dear Rachel,

HOW IS LONDON QUERY

HAVE YOU FOUND ANY BOLT HOLES YET QUERY

Rachel

Dear Rachel, 

I CANNOT EVEN HANDLE YOU RIGHT NOW. Ms. Moriarty?!? Perfection. Utter perfection.

And this Ms. Moriarty is so very cunning! To use Holmes’ very skills against him, to steal Mary’s shoes and send them to her months later, to know Mycroft and Watson and Billy by sight, to even understand and comment on Holmes’ limitations as a partner! Ugh. She is so GOOD. And by that I mean BAD. She is mythic in her abilities of mischief and destruction. Every move serves to show how well she plans, how hidden her movements, how cheeky she is, and how much she already knows about her opponents. 

That Holmes is willing to turn his usual method up on its head shows his true genius. Cognitive flexibility is highly regarded by psychologists. At least, it is according to my Developmental Psychology textbook. 

I did get a bit frustrated that Mary stood outside the carriage while Holmes and the men went over it with a fine tooth comb. And that Holmes would spend all night in the lab without letting Mary have a turn at the microscope. This is a partnership? Mary was right to call him on all of that. And Ms. Moriarty saw it coming!

And I was mollified by what Holmes said once they got onto the boat. He really does think of everything, eventually.

Like how much he values Mary.

Holmes, who is able to put the case, the chase, the game above virtually everything, puts himself and his cover at risk, and sets reason aside (reason!), because he had to make sure Mary was OK. Holmes, who is quite proud of his ability to control his “body’s emotional reactions” flies off the handle when it is suggested that he is not a good partner and Mary is shot at, so that he completely misses that the same typewriter was used in that impertinent note and the Simpson kidnapping.  Holmes, who has always felt perfectly justified by putting Watson or a client temporarily in harm’s way, was struck dumb (for days!) by the thought that he might have to sacrifice his queen to save the game.

But then he forgets that Mary is a female and orders her to strip off her shirt in front of Mycroft and himself for the purposes of disguise-making. 

We really do astounding things to avoid cognitive dissonance, don’t we?

Once again, I am astounded at Laurie R. King’s storytelling. Here in the excursus, she provides the outline for a book that she would not write for five years! And three other books came between them! And if memory serves, that outline is accurate. The ability to create plots out of nothing, the ability to plan out a story now well enough to actually publish the outline, and to do it all in an intelligent and emotionally compelling way completely fascinates me. I do not have these skills. I do not understand them. They are sufficiently advanced from my own skills that they appear as magic to me. Same thing goes for chess. I lack the ability to consider multiple viewpoints as I plan into the future. I may be able to plot out my next 3 moves in a chess game, but I cannot also plot out my opponents and thus counter them. 

I would make a lousy mastermind - chess, criminal, or detective. But that’s alright. Like Mycroft, I would rather stay at home. And read about the exploits of the partnership of Holmes and Russell.

Wishing I could see Holmes in a dress, 

Rachel

Dear Rachel,

The game is afoot! We have finally moved from a series of small, self-contained cases to a grand, over-arching mystery, and I must confess that I am riveted! And as I predicted, we have a diabolical arch-nemesis to fuel the narrative—what could be better than that? I was quite delighted by the revelation that this nemesis is a woman (I have taken to referring to her as “Ms. Moriarty” since we do not have an identity for her yet, which might be unfair in the grand scheme of thing, but I need to call her something). What a lovely way for King to provide a foil for Mary!

Speaking of Mary, you were so right about her level of confidence in this case! I am very much enjoying her newfound spunk. I especially enjoyed it when she outright told Holmes that he needed to start treating her like an adult. I get the impression that King very much enjoyed writing Mary at this stage of her development, because there’s a certain edginess to both the text and the character that hadn’t been present before. For example:

“I know you well enough, Holmes, to suspect that we are about to embark on a long and arduous journey. If it is a choice between expiring slowly from your fumes or being blown to pieces, I choose the latter. Gladly.”

The salty, caustic bits are always the most fun to write, I imagine. 

As for the long and arduous journey Mary mentioned, I found the excursus to be most interesting. Instead of throwing all of her built-up momentum behind a dashing apex of action, King chooses to slow the story’s pace by sending Mary and Holmes off on an almost leisurely pilgrimage to Palestine. Of course, it’s a great way to flesh out Mary’s character and give her a chance to grow and plan a bit more, but it was definitely a bold choice from a narrative perspective. 

Incidentally, I’ve been to both London and Jaffa (currently known as Tel Aviv), so this portion of the novel has been a rather fun exercise imagination for me. I keep trying to age their locations from the modern memories I have to something more appropriate, and I’m not always entirely successful. Historical Jaffa has several little statues of Napoleon that tourists can take photos with (the reason for this is long and historical, so I won’t go into it now, but here’s a picture of me with one from 2007), and couldn’t help but to picture Mary and Sherlock posing with one along their way through the Port of Jaffa. Granted, that’s something Sherlock would probably never agree to do, but I love the idea of it, nonetheless. 

What’s your take on the excursus? It’s an eery calm before the storm for me, but I’d love to know if you feel differently.

Looking forward to more daylight,

Rachel

Dear Rachel,

Here’s how much I don’t care about Jessica Simpson: I have watched many episodes of Newlyweds. I know that she (and Nick Lachey) have been spotted in my hometown because apparently they used the recording studios in Muscle Shoals. So she is in my brain somewhere, and even has indirect personal significance. 

Yet when I read Beekeeper’s Apprentice, I do not bat an eye when the kidnapped little girl shares the same name as a nationally known airhead. 

As to your Moriarty-like arch-nemesis theory, let us compare some language, shall we?

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes on Moriarty in The Final Problem:

He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are numerous and splendidly organized. Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed - the word is passed to the Professor, the matter is organized and carried out. The agent may be caught. In that case money is found for his bail or his defence. But the central power which uses the agent is never caught - never so much as suspected.

and King’s Holmes on the Moriarty-like arch-nemesis in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice:

“There is a mind behind this, Russell, not some casual, uneducated lout.”

And Russell’s summary of the case:

Holmes’ assessment of the case had been quite right, of course. The men in Wales had been paid - well paid - for their work and had received their orders anonymously, from a hoarse voice in London and through the post. All had been meticulously planned. They had been instructed in every detail, <snip> -all this within the space of a few weeks, and all without any trace of the link with London. When the men were taken, all threads snapped, and we were left with five talkative men, some untraceable money, and the knowledge that the puppet-master behind the deed had walked away scott-free.

So…yup. Very Moriarty-like. You are much too clever of of a reader for me.

Except I cannot decide if King is writing a more sloppy arch-nemesis than Conan Doyle did (because the kidnappers spoke openly of their puppet-master, whereas the original Moriarty was never even suspected), or if it only seems that way because we get to hear Russell’s point of view instead of Watson’s.

There is a psychological explanation for the difference you noted in Flavia and Mary. Flavia is still a child, but Mary is smack-dab in her adolescence. Poor teenagers. So many changes in your body, so many hormones, so many cliques, so many rules for your appearance and behavior, and to top it all off, you think everyone is always watching you. They call it adolescent egocentrism, and it can make you so very timid. 

Holmes’ praise of Russell as they speed home on the train is high praise indeed. “It was, in fact, precisely what I myself might have done, given the circumstances.” Russell comments that the compliment lifted weight from her shoulders and “five years added to my posture.”  I think you’ll find that while she still has a lot to learn, she is more confident in her abilities after this case. She is more confident, period. In fact, if you keep reading the series, at times, she may even remind you of Flavia.

In the next book, we see the introduction of King’s version of Mycroft Holmes. I have been reading the original Conan Doyle stories and novels over the past year, and I was surprised at how small a role Mycroft plays. In all the modern takes on the Holmes cannon that I have come across, Mycroft appears quite often and is remarkably indispensable. Almost god-like. And yet in the originals, he appears in only 4 stories.

As an author, though, writing to a modern audience, how could you ignore such a wealth of possible plots and mysterious sources of information? His position makes him compelling! A brother in the highest levels of government is very convenient, is it not?

Thinking vaguely of a bath,

Rachel 

Dear Rachel,

First things first: Having just finished Book II of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, I’d like to now hazard a guess that one of Laurie R. King’s greatest regrets in life is choosing to name the kidnapped child in this novel “Jessica Simpson.” Since the book was published back in 1994, there’s obviously no way she could have possibly foreseen how ridiculous it would one day sound to a 21st Century reader, but my how I collapsed into fits of giggles each time I saw it printed on the page. 

“We went north, on the trail of Jessica Simpson.”

“It was typed on the same machine as the note concerning Jessica Simpson’s ransom.”

Every time I envisioned Russell and Holmes searching the Welsh countryside for the star of of Newlyweds, I died laughing. 

Now, moving on…

You’re so right about King’s sympathetic treatment of Holmes! He’s such a major cultural icon that I think we, as consumers of said culture, sometimes lose sight of the human being beneath the legacy. It’s easy to just think of him as something more akin to a robot (come to think of it, didn’t Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation sometimes fancy himself as Sherlock Holmes when they acted out vignettes on their holodeck?) or to merely give him an achilles heel in the form of a drug addiction, but that isn’t really fair, and I have to give much credit to King for not falling in the trap of treating him as some sort of Commedia Dell’arte stock character. She knows her stuff, as you say, and I found the gentler, more emotional side of Holmes to be very endearing.

Book II was great fun (I get the sense that we’re building up to a Moriarty-like arch-nemesis here—am I right? I’m OK with some spoilers so long as we consider the value of each one on a case by case basis) but I’m still getting the short story vibe. That’s not bad, by any means. Short stories are crucial to the detective genre, after all. I just read Joe Gore’s Spade & Archer (Hmmm, yet another novel about one of literature’s great sleuths written by a modern author. I sense a theme) and it had a very similar rhythm to it, though it all tied together very nicely in the end.  

I’m still enjoying Mary as a character, and I’m very much looking forward to what she does with her abilities coming up. I do wish she’d stop doubting herself so much. I know that Holmes is a great mind and her mentor, but she could benefit from being a little bit more headstrong. I agree with you overall that Mary is a slightly fuller character, but this is one issue where the scales tip in favor of Flavia de Luce. That girl doesn’t answer to anybody. Oh, to be eleven…

Late but not too little,

Rachel

Dear Rachel, 

I am so glad you compared Mary to Flavia! I love both of these characters, and I totally get why you find them to be similar. It’s the mystery-solving, the bicycle-riding, the spunky-ness, and the braids. I must confess that I forget that Mary is blond. So especially in the early part of this first book in the series when Mary is still young, she and Flavia look very similar. In my head.  

As you read on, I think you might find that Mary is a much fuller character than Flavia. Not being a writer myself, I am not sure quite how to put this. Flavia is wonderful. I love Flavia so much. But I feel like I know Mary better. Laurie R. King is brilliant at creating complex, compelling, wonderful, three-dimensional women (I have read every book she’s written, so I feel qualified to make this statement) and giving them exciting adventures. In fact, some of my least favorite of her books have male protagonists.

As you noted, this point in England’s history was crucial for women because of the war. Perhaps many Englishmen were shocked at how valuable women could be to society (outside the home). How interesting that such a time would also reveal to Holmes that a woman could have great value to him as well. 

I do know that King is a Holmes scholar. [In the book “The Sherlockian” by Graham Moore, the protagonist goes to a meeting of a Sherlock Holmes society, at which King was a keynote speaker. This fact made me squee a bit.] It would not surprise me one bit if she wrote the beginning of the book to emulate Conan Doyle’s stories. She has obviously done her homework, and she obviously cares about Holmes as a character to write him so sympathetically.

You asked about what I think of the book the second time around - I still love it. SO MUCH. I usually remember the general outline to books and not great scores of details, so this second reading is almost as good as the first time for me. I do have the benefit of a kind of hindsight, so I have been struck by some of the comments and observations that Holmes and Russell make in light of what will happen in their partnership. But I don’t like to spoil things so that’s all I’ll say for now. How do you feel about spoilers, by the way? Love them or loathe them?

Did you read the Editor’s Preface at the very beginning? King writes the book as though she got a trunk of manuscripts and objects from Mary Russell, typed up the manuscripts and sent them to her publisher. In other words, King writes as though Holmes and Russell were real humans (I believe this makes her a Sherlockian). In that preface, King lists all of the objects that were included in the trunk. I was easily able to place some of the objects with other stories in the series, but the rest of them stumped me. I think I’ll make a little project of matching each object to the proper story! Of course, this means that I will have to re-read the whole series, but sacrifices must be made.

So. Now that you have read Book Two - Internship - what do you think about young Russell’s abilities? Did this third case have enough detail to draw you in?  Does it start to feel more like a novel to you than a short story?

As humble as I can be, 

Rachel

Dear Rachel,

If you had told me even months ago that I would accept the idea of a blond, 5’11” Jewish girl named Mary, I might have laughed at you. Yet, here I am at the end of Book One of The Beekeepers Apprentice and I not only accept Mary Russell, I kind of adore her. She may not not fit my self-stereotyped image of a shayna maidel, but it does wonders for my ego now to claim that only a Jewish girl could be clever enough to spar with Sherlock Holmes.

Normally, I would demand a mystery to solve right off the bat, but Laurie R. King writes Mary with such sparkle and wit that I genuinely didn’t mind waiting until Chapter 3 for a crime to present itself. I spent the reprieve marvelling at the rather ingenious idea of setting a novel about a bright, university-age girl during the throes of World War I. Of course, the timing is necessary if one wants to include a retired Sherlock Holmes as a major character, but I think it’s clear that King was equally keen on giving Mary the best possible atmosphere to flourish in. And what era could be better than a war-ravaged Britain where 1 in 8 men never even came home from the front lines (I can’t help but to remember my high school history teacher now, telling us that the only reason Britain got stuck with a dolt like Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister was because all of the more intelligent, would-be politicians of the age died during the Great War)? Every social and educational opportunity that would have been denied to Mary during Holmes’ Victorian reign is available to her here in the late teens, and that’s simply spectacular.

I’m also delighted in the way Mary reminds me of Flavia de Luce. Maybe it’s the bicycle? They are both brilliant, too, of course, but I think it might be the image of the young female detective riding a bicycle through the English countryside more than anything else that make me link them to one another.

I’m curious to see where this is all going, mystery-wise. By this point, Mary and Sherlock (or Russell and Holmes, as they call one another) have solved two whirlwind cases, both of which were over in the length of a chapter. I’m wondering if the book will continue at that pace, or if we’re due for a more heinous crime up ahead that will take both more effort and more ink. Right now, the pace reminds me of Conan Doyle’s short stories (aside: Did you know that his surname was actually just Doyle? Conan was a middle name, but somewhere along the way, critics began referring to him as “Conan Doyle” and it stuck), which is perhaps what King was aiming for all along. 

How is the reading going for you? Are you liking it more the second time around? Less? Noticing new things? I’m dying to know!

Yours in literary adventure,

Rachel