Love and Other Drugs: Heroin, Specifically - A Review of A Monstrous Regiment of Women

A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


After reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice, I decided to ride on the high of enjoyment I'd acquired while reading it, and plunged straight into the next book in the Mary Russell series, titled A Monstrous Regiment of Women.

To say that the title is intriguing is something of an understatement. It is taken from the title of John Knox's treatise The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, which was published in 1558 and is, as the title indicates, a document against women - more specifically, the rule of women. Knox's indictments against women are grounded solidly in the Bible and in associated texts, and he makes many references to them to shore up his case. What he would have made of the Anglican Church's acceptance of women into its ranks as ordained priests and bishops, I'm not certain - though I can imagine the resulting apoplexy would kill him.

It is the participation and influence of women in traditionally male spheres that forms the core of the novel. While in London during the Christmas season, Mary Russell bumps into an old acquaintance of hers from Oxford. Said acquaintance is very involved in the activities of a new, predominantly female church, led by one Margery Childe. Russell's involvement in Childe's church and, increasingly, in her acquaintance's personal life, spins out into a series of dangerous misadventures that culminates in Russell and Holmes solving a series of murders of wealthy young women connected to Childe's church, and discovering something about themselves, as well.

Unfortunately, this book was hardly as strong as its predecessor, and certainly feels like a letdown. I wish I could give it 2.5 stars, since while one half of it was good, the other half was really quite dreadful. The bits involving theology and women were, I think, the best part. Russell specializes in theology, and her discussions with Childe in connection to the systematic elision or reduction by centuries of translators of the strength of female influence in the Bible are utterly fascinating, and are certainly the strongest moments in the book. Also, Russell's regard of Childe and her thoughts regarding mystics, specifically female mystics such as Catherine of Siena, are fascinating for those who are interested in the role of women in Christianity and their role as recipients and distributors of God's word.

However, the other half of the book hardly lives up to the strength of its other half. I refer specifically to the heroin subplot, wherein Russell is kidnapped by some mysterious male perpetrator, held in a dank basement, and is shot full of heroin in an attempt to make her hopelessly addicted to the drug. Through sheer strength of will she resists the pull of the drug, and Holmes rescues her eventually, but the episode is far too melodramatic for my tastes, a resounding echo of similar events in soap operas. I should think that soap opera moments have no place in a novel about Holmes and a woman with the same level of intelligence as he - or if it must happen, then it shouldn't happen to them. And yet there it is, and from that moment onwards the novel seems to take a downhill slide.

The choice of perpetrator also seemed overly melodramatic to me, another resounding echo of soap opera plotlines. Perhaps I would have been more willing to accept Childe's abusive husband as the mastermind behind the murders if there had been more setup besides that one moment where Russell sees Childe with facial injuries, but there is no such setup. I was actually quite convinced that it was someone else in the Childe's church masterminding the whole thing (I'd actually settled on her maid being the most plausible, with collaborators), and so the fact that it was Childe's husband all along made me feel rather cheated. While I am not one to question the author's choice of perpetrator in a mystery novel, this one was so poorly done that my mind rebelled against it for a good long while, and still does.

Finally, there is the change of relationship between Holmes and Russell. Although the beginning of the novel, and indeed, even the previous novel, had already set this whole change up, so I knew it was likely to come relatively soon, the way it comes about did not seem as being quite in-character for both Holmes and Russell. While I've already come to accept - and enjoy - King's more emotional Holmes, and Russell is already quite emotional in her own way (though that emotion is filtered through a dry wit and intellectual mind), the way they reach the conclusion they do about the direction their relationship should take is far too sudden for my liking, not to mention rather out-of-character.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice was a solid, enjoyable introduction to a new character and to old, familiar (but not quite) ones. Unfortunately, A Monstrous Regiment of Women is quite the letdown. Weak subplots and melodrama are certainly not what readers of the first book would expect in a second attempt, and their presence weakens incredibly what might otherwise have been an intriguing book. Russell's voice, fortunately, is still as entertaining as ever except when she's being more emotional than usual, and is just enough to sustain the reader throughout this rather awful story.

The Tale of a MacGuffin - A Review of A Letter of Mary

A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


After the disappointment of A Monstrous Regiment of Women, I was not very much inclined to read the next installment in the Mary Russell series, titled A Letter of Mary. I decided to forge on, though, in the hopes that this will prove better than the last one, and that it might wash away some of the bitter aftertaste of disappointment in the last book.

In this novel, Holmes and Russell appear to be settling well into married life after the events of A Monstrous Regiment of Women, when they are visited in their (formerly just Holmes's) home in Sussex by an old friend: archaeologist Dorothy Ruskin, whom Holmes and Russell met on their travels through Palestine in the first book, The Beekeeper's Apprentice. The visit deepens Russell's appreciation for Ruskin, and the latter gives into Russell's keeping a little box she claims to have acquired from an Arab in Palestine. Inside the box is a scroll of papyrus which, when Russell reads it, appears to be a letter written by one Mariam (or Mary) to her sister in Magdala. It does not take much to put two and two together, even for the reader: the "Mariam," or "Mary" of the letter, could only be Mary of Magdala - Mary Magdalene. In the letter, Mariam claims that she is a follower - a disciple - of a man named Joshua, whom she calls the "Anointed One." Joshua, when traced forwards through time, is actually a variation of the name "Jesus."

A Mariam, or Mary, of Magdala who is a disciple if an Anointed One named Joshua, or Jesus. Anyone who has had even the slightest bit of contact with The Da Vinci Code and the controversies associated with it will know precisely what is being referred to here: the position of Mary Magdalene within the circle of followers, or disciples, who gathered around the man who would later be called Jesus Christ.

The letter proves to be an interesting puzzle for Russell, whose analysis of the letter is interspersed throughout the rest of the story. While there is no mention made (thankfully) of the idea that Mary Magdalene could have been Jesus's wife, Russell's thoughts on what this letter could mean if unleashed upon London in the early 1920s are fascinating. The suffragette movement and the ideals it fought for, which were grounded in the events of World War I and which gained steam in the years immediately after, were always present, even in the first novel. While they were not foregrounded in The Beekeeper's Apprentice, they were given much more attention in A Monstrous Regiment of Women, and play an important role once again in A Letter of Mary. Russell's thoughts on the letter sharpen when she is forced to go undercover in the household of a particularly misogynistic colonel, and it is while she is playing secretary to said colonel that her musings on the role of women and their continued participation in the future become clearest and most interesting.

This book was better than the last one, which is why it receives three stars as opposed to the two I gave the last one. But it gets nothing higher than that because of one particular annoying feature: a red herring. Throughout the novel I had been led to believe that the letter Russell kept in her possession was far more important than it turned out to be. Indeed, the letter was nothing more than a red herring at most, and a plot device at the least: a means to get Russell and Holmes involved in the case later on. While I had no trouble with the plot, it was the motives of the perpetrators, as they were revealed in the last part of the book, that annoyed me the most. Given the importance placed on the letter - it was a crucial part of the plot for a good three-fourths of the novel - I was disappointed to figure out at the end that it had nothing to do with the crime at all. The letter was nothing more than a gift, and the motives of the perpetrators were driven more by greed than any desire to keep the information in the papyrus a secret. Indeed, the mastermind had no knowledge, or even interest, in the letter Russell was keeping, and really couldn't have cared less about whether or not its contents were divulged to the general public.

Despite that problem, however, I do find this book slightly stronger than the last one, and I hope it is the sign of better things to come in this series. Russell's voice is, as always, entertaining and a joy to read, especially when she starts snarking back at her husband - but then, Holmes always gives as good as he gets, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some readers might blush like Mycroft when they figure out the other aspects of Holmes and Russell's marriage, but it does strengthen King's stand that her Holmes is more human than Doyle's.

One other thing that might be of interest to those who love fantasy literature as well as mysteries: a particularly famous and deeply revered fantasist out of Oxford is briefly mentioned by Russell in the course of the story. Finding his name tickled me to no end, as I am a fan of said fantasist, and I hope that others take the same pleasure in it that did.

It was a Cold and Stormy Night (in Dartmoor) - A Review of The Moor

The Moor by Laurie R. King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Whenever I read books in a series, I have a simple policy: if the first book does not grab me, then there's no reason to continue reading the rest of it. But if the first book does grab me, I make an effort to read everything after it. This is especially true for series with more than three books; in general, I've noticed that such long series have high points and low points, and if I can come to the end of the series with a feeling of having encountered more highs than lows, I will gladly wait for the next installment. If not, I may decide to simply give up reading it for good.

In the case of the Mary Russell series, I enjoyed the first book, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, enough that I dove straight into the second one. However, A Monstrous Regiment of Women proved to be a severe disappointment, enough that I was almost reluctant to read A Letter of Mary, which was the third installment in the series. Nevertheless, keeping true to my policy, I read through it, and found it better than its predecessor, though not quite as good as the first. It was still enough, though, to restore some of my faith in this series, and so I picked up The Moor, the fourth book.

At first, the title brought to mind (in my case, anyway) visions of exotic, distant lands - mostly because I was thinking of the word "moor" with a capital, as in "Moor." I had visions of Russell and Holmes going out of England and encountering mystery and adventure in Egypt, perhaps, or Morocco, or even in Spain, since the south of that country was an important center for Moorish culture before the Reconquista. I was, however, mistaken: the "Moor" in the title should have been read without capitals, thus referring to the cold, lonely wastes deep in the heart of England - exotic, to be sure, albeit significantly colder.

But this did not disappoint me - far from it, it rather excited me, because the word "moor" is crucial to the place-name of "Dartmoor," and Dartmoor is the setting of what might arguably be called the most famous Holmes story: The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The story begins with Russell working away on a paper at Oxford, determinedly ignoring (at first) Holmes's demands that she go to Dartmoor. A few insistent telegraphs later, Russell decides that she's had enough, throws what she can into a bag, and travels on out to meet her husband. Once there they take up residence at Lew Trenchard Manor, where Holmes has been invited by his old friend Sabine Baring-Gould to work out the mystery behind the reappearance of the Hound of the Baskervilles - or rather, something very much like it. As in The Hound of the Baskervilles, things are never as simple as they seem, and what starts out as a favor to an old friend turns into something far different, with more to do with earthly crimes than supernatural curses.

It could be that I am biased towards the more "active" of the Holmes stories, but I enjoyed this more than A Letter of Mary, and significantly more than A Monstrous Regiment of Women. While frequent walks through the moors in all weather conditions might not be as exciting as, say, chasing fugitives down the Thames in a boat (as in The Sign of Four), or even dodging potential bomb threats (as was the case in The Beekeeper's Apprentice), those meanderings through the moors, and, in particular, the people Russell encounters, are incredibly interesting to me. Some might consider all this rambling and talks of hot baths and sucking mud and moor songs entirely uninteresting, but I find them incredibly fascinating, very much in the same way Baring-Gould himself might have found them fascinating.

I will admit, however, that the descriptions do slow the pace down a bit. I refer in particular to Russell's first attempt to go across the moor on a horse, gathering information as she goes. While gathering information is indeed crucial to the solution of any mystery, and though I did enjoy the way Russell described the places and people she encountered along the way, I did think the story got bogged down in that portion. Something more exciting could have happened, and though I will not complain overmuch, I do think it could have been improved a little, just to make the plot go a bit more quickly.

Unlike with the last two novels, I do not have any particular complaints about the perpetrators and their motives for this novel, despite the presence of a red herring. But in this instance, the red herring was not as central as the one in A Letter of Mary, and hence did not interfere overmuch with my enjoyment of the story. This time around, concluding the tale, and reaching that conclusion, were not as disappointing as in the last two novels.

Despite the rather slow pace of this book, it actually approaches, in terms to my enjoyment of it, the first of the series. It's not quite as good as the first, but it does go some way towards fixing the disappointment left by the second and third books in the series. Once more I can look to the next in the series with anticipation, and hopefully, it will be closer to the first than this one was - or, dare I hope, even better.