A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
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Published Apr 2010
368 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
It began as a problem in one of Holmes' beloved beehives, led to a murderous cult, and ended—or so they'd hoped—with a daring escape from a sacrificial altar. Instead, Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, have stirred the wrath and the limitless resources of those they’ve thwarted. Now they are separated and on the run, wanted by the police, and pursued across the Continent by a ruthless enemy with powerful connections.
Unstoppable together, Russell and Holmes will have to survive this time apart, maintaining tenuous contact only by means of coded messages and cryptic notes. With Holmes' young granddaughter in her safekeeping, Russell will have to call on instincts she didn’t know she had. But has the couple already made a fatal mistake by separating, making themselves easier targets for the shadowy government agents sent to silence them?
From hidden rooms in London shops and rustic forest cabins to rickety planes over Scotland and boats on the frozen North Sea, Russell and Holmes work their way back to each other while uncovering answers to a mystery that will take both of them to solve. A hermit with a mysterious past and a beautiful young female doctor with a secret, a cruelly scarred flyer and an obsessed man of the cloth, Holmes' brother, Mycroft, and an Intelligence agent who knows too much: Everyone Russell and Holmes meet could either speed their safe reunion or betray them to their enemies—in the most complex, shocking, and deeply personal case of their career.
"Starred Review. Using short chapters and wielding her virtual pen like a burnished sword, King allows readers to race through this gloriously complex second half of last year’s Language of Bees." - Booklist
"Cliffhanging situations abound as both leads benefit from the convenient appearance of extremely helpful strangers." - Publishers Weekly
"The God of the Hive is mesmerizing - another wonderful novel etched by the hand of a master storyteller. No reader who opens this one will be disappointed." - Michael Connelly, author of The Scarecrow
"A dazzling continuation of the adventures of the world’s most famous beekeeper, and his equally daunting 'apprentice,' The God of the Hive will astonish and delight even the most seasoned of Holmes’ devotees." - Katherine Neville, The Fire
"The Mary Russell series is the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today, and this is the best installment yet." - Lee Child, author of Gone Tomorrow
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
© Seth Affoumado
Laurie R. King is the New York Times bestselling author of 22 novels and other works, including the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories (from The Beekeeper's Apprentice, named one of the 20th century's best crime novels by the IMBA, to 2015's Dreaming Spies). She has won or been nominated for an alphabet of prizes from Agatha to Wolfe, been chosen as guest of honor at several crime conventions, and has both an Edgar and Creasey and an honorary doctorate in theology. She was inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars in 2010, as "The Red Circle".
He lates works include books for the Mary Russell series, Mary Russell's War (2015) and The Murder of Mary Russel (April 2016).
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