Mary Russell Books in Order: How to read Laurie R. King’s series?

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Set in the world of famous literary detective Sherlock Holmes, this mystery series written by American author Laurie R. King introduces us to Mary Russell, the new protégé of the British detective.

Mostly set between 1915 and the late 1920s, those memoirs written and compiled apparently by an aged Mary Russell began with the meeting of the bright young woman with an older Holmes who takes her under his wing. Now, they solve crimes together.

How to read the Mary Russell Series in Order?

Every book in the Mary Russell series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

  1. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice – In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles onto him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern, twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. They are soon called to Wales to help Scotland Yard find the kidnapped daughter of an American senator.
  2. A Monstrous Regiment of Women – It’s the dawn of 1921. Veronica Beaconsfield introduces Mary Russell to the New Temple of God, led by the enigmatic, electrifying Margery Childe. Part suffragette, part mystic, she lives quite well for a woman of God from supposedly humble origins. Despite herself, Russell is drawn ever deeper into Childe’s circle. When Veronica has a near-fatal accident, Russell and Holmes launch a quiet investigation. But the Temple may bring the newly rich Russell far closer to heaven than she would like.…
  3. A Letter of Mary – It is 1923. Mary Russell Holmes and her husband, the retired Sherlock Holmes, are enjoying the summer together on their Sussex estate when they are visited by an old friend, Miss Dorothy Ruskin, an archeologist just returned from Palestine. She leaves in their protection an ancient manuscript which seems to hint at the possibility that Mary Magdalene was an apostle. When Ruskin is suddenly killed in a tragic accident, Russell and Holmes find themselves on the trail of a fiendishly clever murderer.
  4. The Moor – In the eerie wasteland of Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes summons his devoted wife and partner, Mary Russell, from her studies at Oxford to aid the investigation of a death and some disturbing phenomena of a decidedly supernatural origin. Through the mists of the moor there have been sightings of a spectral coach made of bones carrying a woman long-ago accused of murdering her husband–and of a hound with a single glowing eye.
  1. O Jerusalem – At the close of the year 1918, forced to flee England, Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell enter British-occupied Palestine under the auspices of Holmes’s enigmatic brother, Mycroft. Their arrival coincides with a rash of unsolved murders that has baffled the authorities and seems unrelated to the growing tensions in the area among Jew, Moslem, and Christian. Still, no one is too pleased at Holmes’s insistence on reconstructing the most recent homicide in the desert gully where it occurred. What they unexpectedly uncover will lead Russell and Holmes into mortal danger.
  2. Justice Hall – It’s a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since. But it’s not until Holmes and Russell arrive at Justice Hall, a home of unearthly perfection set in a garden modeled on Paradise, that they fully understand the irony echoed in the family motto, Justicia fortitudo mea est: “Righteousness is my strength.” A trail of ominous clues comprise a mystery that leads from an English hamlet to the city of Paris to the wild prairie of the New World.
  3. The Game – It’s only the second day of 1924, but Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, find themselves embroiled in intrigue. It starts with a New Year’s visit from Holmes’s brother Mycroft, who comes bearing a strange package containing the papers of an English spy named Kimball O’Hara. Inexplicably, O’Hara withdrew from the “Great Game” of espionage and now he has just as inexplicably disappeared. When Russell discovers Holmes’s own secret friendship with the spy, she knows the die is cast.
  4. Locked Rooms – In 1924, San Francisco is booming. The great fire and earthquake of 1906 cleared the ground for a modern city, but the closer she comes to the place she used to call home, the more troubling Mary Russell’s dreams become. As Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, attempt to settle their affairs in the City by the Bay, Mary’s past isn’t the only thing that catches up with them – a mysterious stranger is waiting for the pair, and may be the only one who holds the key to the locked rooms that have been haunting Mary’s dreams…
  1. The Language of Bees – For Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad was especially sweet. But the anticipated sweetness of their homecoming is quickly tempered by a galling memory from the past. Mary had met Damian Adler only once before, when the surrealist painter had been charged with-and exonerated from-murder. Now the troubled young man is enlisting the Holmeses’ help again, this time in a desperate search for his missing wife and child.
  2. The God of the Hive – Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, have stirred the wrath of a murderous secret organization bent on infiltrating the government. Now they are separated and on the run, wanted by the police, and pursued across the Continent by a ruthless enemy with limitless resources and powerful connections.
  3. Pirate King – In England’s young silent-film industry, the megalomaniacal Randolph Fflytte is king. Nevertheless, Mary Russell is dispatched to investigate the criminal activities that surround Fflytte’s popular movie studio. So Russell is travelling undercover to Portugal, along with the film crew that is gearing up to shoot a cinematic extravaganza, Pirate King.
  4. Garment of Shadows – In a strange room in Morocco, Mary Russell is trying to solve a pressing mystery: Who am I? She has awakened with shadows in her mind, blood on her hands, and soldiers pounding on the door. Out in the hivelike streets, she discovers herself strangely adept in the skills of the underworld, escaping through alleys and rooftops, picking pockets and locks. She is clothed like a man, and armed only with her wits and a scrap of paper containing a mysterious Arabic phrase. Overhead, warplanes pass ominously north.
  1. Dreaming Spies – After a lengthy case that had the couple traipsing all over India, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are on their way to California to deal with some family business that Russell has been neglecting for far too long. Aboard the ship, intrigue stirs almost immediately. Holmes recognizes the famous clubman the Earl of Darley, whom he suspects of being an occasional blackmailer. And then there’s the lithe, surprisingly fluent young Japanese woman who befriends Russell and quotes haiku. She agrees to tutor the couple in Japanese language and customs, but Russell can’t shake the feeling that Haruki Sato is not who she claims to be.
  2. The Murder of Mary Russell – Mary Russell is used to dark secrets-her own, and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. And what of the other person to whom Mary Russell has opened her heart: the couple’s longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson? Russell’s faith and affection are suddenly shattered when a man arrives on the doorstep claiming to be Mrs. Hudson’s son. What Samuel Hudson tells Russell cannot possibly be true, yet she believes him-as surely as she believes the threat of the gun in his hand.
  3. Island of the Mad – The last thing Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, need is to help an old friend with her mad, missing aunt. Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, since the loss of her brother and father in the Great War. Although her mental state seemed to be improving, she’s now disappeared after an outing from Bethlem Royal Hospital . . . better known as Bedlam.
  4. Riviera Gold– It’s summertime on the Riviera, and the Jazz Age has come to France’s once-sleepy beaches. From their music-filled terraces, American expatriates gaze along the coastline at the lights of Monte Carlo, where fortunes are won, lost, stolen, and sometimes hidden away. When Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes arrive, they find their partnership pulled between youthful pleasures and old sins, hot sun and cool jazz, new affections and enduring loyalties.
  1. Castle Shade – The queen is Marie of Roumania: the doubly royal granddaughter of Victoria, Empress of the British Empire, and Alexander II, Tsar of Russia. A famous beauty who was married at seventeen into Roumania’s young dynasty, Marie had beguiled the Paris Peace Conference into returning her adopted country’s long-lost provinces, singlehandedly transforming Roumania from a backwater into a force.
  2. The Lantern’s Dance – After their recent adventures in Transylvania, Russell and Holmes look forward to spending time with Holmes’ son, the famous artist Damian Adler, and his family. But when they arrive at Damian’s house, they discover that the Adlers have fled from a mysterious threat. As Holmes rushes after Damian, Russell stays behind to search the empty house and found an old journal written in a nearly impenetrable code. Intrigued, Russell sets about deciphering the intricate cryptograph, slowly realizing that each entry is built around an image-the first of which is a child, bundled into a carriage by an abductor, watching her mother recede from view. Russell is troubled, then entranced, but each entry she decodes brings more questions…

  • Mary Russell’s War: And Other Stories of Suspense – A collection of 10 short stories, from a prequel novella of Mary Russell’s teenage diaries to the real story of how Miss Russell came to send her Memoirs to Laurie R. King, from Mrs. Hudson’s own investigation to a tale of young Russell’s beloved Uncle Jake–and, a Christmas investigation by Sherlock Holmes and his very young assistant. Collects Mary’s Christmas, Mary Russell’s War, Beekeeping for Beginners, Mrs Hudson’s Case, The Marriage of Mary Russell, Birth of a Green Man, A Venomous Death, My Story, A Case in Correspondence and Stately Holmes.

Beyond the Mary Russell novels, other writers put their spin on Sherlock Holmes like Nancy Springer with the Enola Holmes series, Martin Davies with the Holmes and Hudson series, Sherry Thomas with The Lady Sherlock series, M.J. Trow with the Sholto Lestrade series, David Lagercrantz with the Rekke/Vargas series, and more!

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5 Comments

  1. Actually, if you read these by the years covered, “O Jerusalem” begins right after “The Beekeeper’s Apprentice” and if read this way, Mary has developed the skills to deal with the complexities in the following book “A Monstrous Regiment of Women.”

    1. I have been through all the books with the exception of “Castle “. I was attempting to start at the beginning and start over . Can you please tell me which title has Mary and Holmes returning form Palestine ? I am unable to find it. The one in which Mary confronts her old Professor who is the villain.

    2. the first book the Beekeeper’s Apprentice is the one where they come back from Palestine, and are surprised by Mary’s professor at Sherlock’s cottage.

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