The Language of Bees

A Little Background: I love Mary Russell and her world. The first Mary Russell book, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, was published in 1994 and I’ve been following her ever since!

Book Description: The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King

After months abroad, Holmes and Russell are back in Sussex with a perplexing mystery, the disappearance of a colony of bees from Holmes’s hives. But before Holmes has time to investigate the disappearance, his past abruptly shows up at his door in the form of one Damian Adler, a surrealist painter who is also Holmes’s son with Irene Adler. A very troubled young man, Adler intends on engaging Holmes to solve the sudden vanishing of his wife and child.

Russell will find her relationship with Holmes stretched to its limit as they each set about investigating the disappearance. It’s a familial affair as Mycroft Holmes is brought into the thick of it. What the trio uncovers is chilling and takes them from the teeming streets of Shanghai to Bohemian London of the 1920s. They must traverse bizarre religious cults, sadistic rituals and suicides putting all in grave danger.

To be continued…



My Take: The Language of Bees has a great cliff-hanger of an ending which has me primed for The God of the Hive its follow up. King’s writing reminds me somewhat of Elizabeth Peters in that I get lost in the worlds they conjure up. I cannot miss one word not just for fear of missing anything pertinent but just for the sheer glory of reading. Both authors engage their readers to distraction. Forget the dishes in the sink and the laundry piling up! Just let me sit quietly in a comfortable chair for the rest of the day to simply read.

About the Author:



Laurie King is the bestselling author of four contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, the award-winning Mary Russell series, and the bestselling novels A Darker Place, Folly, and Keeping Watch. She lives in northern California. You can Facebook with Laurie and Twitter with her as well.