A Return to the Moor

The Moor

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (October 30, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0312427395

This is yet another read for RIP II ! I didn't think I'd read the four I committed to, so this is a surprise for even me!

If you like Sherlock Holmes you will enjoy this book.

If you like Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles... you will enjoy this book.

Although Holmes is not the central star of this book I promise you that if you ever saw any of the old black and white movies you will still hear Basil Rathbone's voice when Holmes speaks!

But in truth this book is more centered around Mary Russell... Holmes' wife.

"Something is wrong with the Moor" Sabine Baring-Gould said, "I want you to discover what it is, and stop it." "...the Hound has been seen again, running free on the Moor."

And so begins a new Holmes-Russell mystery on the Moor.....

For whatever reason, I couldn't just speed through this book, but I definitely enjoyed it! Laurie R King's writing is just about what you would expect for a Holmes story.. but her depiction of Mary Russell was nothing short of funny!

As Holmes and Russell approach Lew House: "So it was that we approached Lew House, with me limping and slurping in my boots while beside me walked my partner and husband, his only dishevelment after three days of moor-crawling the day's light stubble on his jaw and a high-tide mark on the mud around the lower half of his otherwise clean boots. He looked as if he were returning from a gentle day's shooting; I seemed to have spent the day wrestling a herd of escaped pigs through a bog."

Her descriptions of people and places and feelings are nothing short of fantastic. The book had it's creepy times, which I was grateful for since I wanted this book to be one I could read for the challenge. Yet time and again I couldn't help but laugh at Mary Russells sense of humor. I think the coupling of these two is really a good way to have more Holmes mysteries.

Ms. King made many references to The Baskerville Hounds and to Watson and even Conan Doyle in her writing... you felt as if you were back with old acquaintances.

"The hands of my pocket watch crept around, and the powers of darkness moved over the face of the moor. Midnight came and midnight passed, and neither of us had moved or spoken for some time, when I began to feel a strange sensation in the air around me. Looking back, it was probably only the psychic eeriness of the night combined with the physical sensation brought by the electric charges of the storm, building and ebbing, but it began to feel almost as if there were another person in the rock shelter with us-- or if not a person, then at least a Presence. It did not seem to me, as Holmes had suggested, an evil presence, nor even a terribly powerful one, but I thought it old, very old, and patient. It felt, I decided, as if the moor itself were holding watch with us. Holmes did not seem aware of anything other than discomfort and impatience, and I did not care to mention my fancies to him. I was, however, very grateful for his warm bulk beside me."

I really enjoyed this book and will most likely order another of her books about Mary Russell and Holmes.

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short update on my foot: I broke a bone! Now I have to get a boot cast.. I am not a happy camper!