The Game by Laurie R. King

“The Game” is Laurie R. King’s the seventh and latest mystery novel in her acclaimed Mary Russell series. 1924 begins with Mary and her husband, the fabled Sherlock Holmes, taking a long-needed rest at their home. All too soon they find themselves on their way to India at the request of Holmes’ brother Mycroft. British agent Kimball O’Hara (the same Kimball who served as the inspiration for Rudyard Kipling’s famed “Kim” story) has not been seen for several years after his successful career in the “Great Game” of border espionage. Is Kimball being held as a prisoner somewhere? Has he joined the other side? Is he dead? This is what Mycroft wishes them to find out.

Unable to travel openly, Mary and Sherlock must take on new languages, customs, and disguises in their search for Kimball, a man Holmes knew thirty years before. They meet a number of colorful characters, some of whom are not what they appear on the surface.

Traveling with an American family, Mary ends up as the guest of a charming but sinister maharaja who invites travelers to stay in his palace for as long as they wish. But are they his guests or are they unwitting exhibits in his zoo? Before the mystery of Kimball’s disappearance is unraveled, Holmes displays a talent for magic tricks and juggling, while Mary learns she has an ability for “pig sticking” on horseback.

Like Elizabeth George, King does a great deal of research in preparation for her individual plots. Her characters are vividly drawn and believable. King switches back and forth between two series, the Mary Russell stories set in Victorian England and her Kate Martinelli detective novels set in present-day San Francisco. She also writes “stand alone” novels such as “A Darker Place” (1999) and “Folly” (2001). A British filmmaker has expressed interest in filming the first Mary Russell novel’ “The Beekeeper’s Apprentice” but cannot proceed with the project until all of the original Sherlock Holmes stories have come into the public domain in the United Kingdom.