The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King

Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, have finally arrived back in England after a trip around the world. But the trip wasn't the pleasure cruise you might assume, because at every stop, they spent time working and detecting either for various potentates or for themselves. At their last stop, in America, Mary found that everything she remembered or thought she knew about her childhood and parents was wrong, and that case took a lot out of her.

She is happier than she knows to finally be home, but two problems are dropped in their lap as soon as they enter their home in Sussex. The first is that one of Holmes's beehives seems to have gone crazy, swarming and swarming until no bees were left and the hive died. The second is a visitor, Damien Adler, who happens to be Holmes's son by Irene Adler. Part of the time after Reichenbach falls he spent with her, recuperating. Her husband had died, and she nursed him back to health. He didn't realize that she was pregnant when he left her, and she never contacted him to tell him.

Instead, it was Mycroft who discovered that his brother had a son, and he contacted Irene. Shortly after Holmes and Russell married, they had to go to France to defend Damien from the charge of having killed a man. But that was years ago, and now he has changed. Formerly, he had been using drugs, but after the woman who took care of him in France died, he signed on as a deckhand for a trip around the world. He ended up in Shanghai, where he revived his interest in art and painting, and ended up marrying a Chinese girl who acted as his agent.

Eventually, they moved to England and settled in the Bohemian area of London. His wife was of no particular religion, but had been through all of them in Shanghai, and kept the same sort of habit in England. Not long ago, she left, presumably on one of her "religious adventures", but since then, she hasn't come home. and Damien is worried about her. Not only for himself, but also for their daughter, Estelle. He wants his father's help in finding his wife.

Sherlock Holmes, even as tired as he is after all that travelling around the world, agrees to help him, and the two men take off for London early the next day, leaving Mary behind. She is somewhat annoyed to be left behind, but she has plenty to do, and does it, unpacking and setting the house to rights. She also does a bit of investigation into the problem of Holmes's dead hive, but soon finds the tedium wearing. She's also concerned about Damien, and his art, because it has a thread of madness running through it that disturbs her greatly.

Soon, she follows the two to London to do some investigating of her own, and discovers that Damien's wife, Yolanda, was associated with a religious organization called the Children of Lights, whose ceremonies are more than a bit... strange. Mary tries to ingratiate herself with the high priestess of the organization, but soon she hears some bad news: Yolanda's body has been found dead near Stonehenge. And the corpse seems to share similarities to several other bodies that have been turning up at other neolithic sites, with all the bodies, human and animal, being slaughtered on the nights of the full moon.

Since the Children of Lights are fixated on the Sun, Moon and Stars, and their altar includes a giant canvas painted by Damien, Mary wonders if Damien may be responsible for his wife's death. But Holmes will not believe it without absolutely convincing evidence, and so she is forced to plumb the depths of insanity and depravity looking for evidence both for and against him. Meanwhile, Damien has left Holmes, before the discovery of his wife's body, and Holmes cannot find him. But Holmes is investigating the deaths at the other sacred sites. Can he find the true culprit, with the help of Mary and his brother Mycroft? And what will he do if Damien is truly guilty of all these crimes?

I've always enjoyed the Holmes and Russell books by Laurie R. King, even if a lot of people I know would consider Mary Russell to be a sort of Mary Sue, or original character who is just too good to be true. Here is a young Jewish girl who somehow comes to the notice of the retired Detective Sherlock Holmes, who is good enough to be his assistant, and ends up marrying him? Mary Sues (or Gary Stus, the male variant) are usually authorial insertion characters, but you won't find me hating on Mary Russell. She's not perfect or too good to be true. Even if she does waft an odor of Mary-Sueness, I enjoy reading these books, and wouldn't label her so myself.

Here, we are faced with a dilemma for Holmes. There are certain people he would never believe evil of: Mycroft, Watson and Mary Russell are three of those names. But has he added Damian to the list? And what will he do if Damien really is responsible for all the murders and killings that have occurred. Will he ever be able to acknowledge it? The novel keeps who is really responsible for the deaths up in the air until almost the very end. Even after the true murderer is revealed, there is still the question as to if he shares complicity in the deaths, and if he will be a partner to the death of his daughter.

The tension towards the end of the book is palpable, and being drawn out as Mary fights her way to the Orkney Islands in a small plane sometimes makes it seem interminable. But with each delay she experiences, the tension merely gets wound tighter, and the ending releases that tension in such a way that it almost seems like a letdown. On the other hand, the end is not the end, and it is clear that there will be a follow-up volume to the story.

I recommend this book, but not highly, as I found the story to be too long and drawn-out. Yes, it was a fairly long story, but the length made it lose a great deal of its snap and vigor. By the end, I just wanted it to be over, and I thought the ending made both Holmes and Russell seem just a bit careless. They wanted the villain to be dead so badly that neither checked, although, to be fair, there was a victim needing help at that point. This book is good, but not the best example of the series. Start elsewhere if you want to get hooked.