THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE

Laurie R King’s first Mary Russell novel The Beekeeper’s Apprentice was published in 1994. Since then she has gone on to publish at least another 18 books in the series.

After the fashion of many Sherlock Holmes books, the author purports to have been in receipt of a number of manuscripts and other fascinating items. The writer of these manuscripts (M.R.H.) states that Holmes was real flesh-and-blood – ‘my Holmes is not the Holmes of Watson... my perspective, my brush technique, my use of colour and shade, are all entirely different from him. The subject is essentially the same; it is the eyes and the hands of the artist that change’ (page xvii).

In 1915 the young fifteen-year-old Mary Russell is reading a book on the Sussex Downs when she literally trips over Sherlock Holmes. [The book blurb gives the date as 1914, which is incorrect!]

‘... it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year... In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading amongst the sheep (which tended to move out of my way) and the gorse bushes (to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness) I had never before stepped on a person’ (p5).

Holmes is studying bees and has quite a few hives to look after behind his cottage, his retreat, which is administered by Mrs Hudson.

The narrative is first-person by Mary, and it’s a joy to read. The voice and character of Mary and Holmes are captured perfectly.

This first interaction on the Downs soon conveys to each that their intellects mesh remarkably well. We meet the ‘real’ Mrs Hudson and Dr Watson and Sherlock’s brother Mycroft. Holmes takes Mary under his wing, training her in his techniques and methods of disguise, even arranging for her to undertake Oriental self-defence. The years pass as she studies at Oxford, spending her holidays at the Sussex cottage to learn from her mentor.

The tone varies from serious, to intellectual, to humorous: ‘My first task was to make a move towards reuniting Watson with his trousers’ (p205) – a sentence you’d never find in the Conan Doyle cannon!

Before long, Mary – who Holmes always refers to as ‘Russell’ – joins the Great Detective on his investigations. Considerable danger is afoot, it seems; and the main perpetrator is as cunning as the late adversary Moriarty. As time goes by, despite the age difference the pair become close.

This book has heart, humour, depth of description that sets the reader in the scene, and a main character who greatly appeals.

A splendid beginning to a series. Next: A Monstrous Regiment of Women (1995).

Note: This cover is pretty poor. The later A&B cover and its successors are much better.

Review - Mystery Weekly Magazine - October 2018

This is the annual Sherlock Holmes special, which appears every October.

We begin with Michael Mallory’s tale ‘The Inimitable Affair’ which cleverly has Holmes and Watson dealing with blackmail, an ex-actress called Ellen Ternan and a certain Charles Dickens. Enjoyable, indeed.

Next is ‘The Very First Detective: The Killing Stone’ by Nik Morton, which is a pastiche concerning one prehistoric Olmes and his narrator, Otsun, based on ‘a series of controversial prehistoric paintings on stone tablets recently discovered in a secret cave complex in the Pyrenees’. A great appropriate cover by Peter Habjan.

A non-fiction piece by Bruce Harris interestingly analyses an incident in A Study in Scarlet.

A non-Holmes tale is ‘The Secrets of Skin’ by Thomas K Carpenter, set in ancient Rome, where the obese magistrate Ovid is placed in the unenviable position involving politics and theft. Some excellent humour in this story!

Tim McDaniel’s ‘A Death in Tadcaster’ is homage to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, concerning one Miss Dalyrimple, with a neat twist.

The prolific Holmsian S Subramnian’s contribution, ‘The Beginning of the Final Problem’ is just that, a precursor to the Holmes story ‘The Final Problem’, and it’s well done.

Lastly, Peter DiChellis provides a ‘you solve it’ short piece, ‘Treasure Cave’ – you’ll get the solution next issue, however.

Available on Amazon.

The Very First Detective - Mystery Weekly October 2018

  

At the cutting edge of crime fiction, Mystery Weekly Magazine presents original short stories by the world’s best-known and emerging mystery writers. The stories we feature in our monthly issues span every imaginable subgenre, including cosy, police procedural, noir, whodunit, supernatural, hardboiled, humour, and historical mysteries. Evocative writing and a compelling story are the only certainty.
Get ready to be surprised, challenged, and entertained--whether you enjoy the style of the Golden Age of mystery (e.g., Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle), the glorious pulp digests of the early twentieth century (e.g., Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler), or contemporary masters of mystery.

In this issue: In our cover feature, “The Very First Detective: The Killing Stone” by Nik Morton, a series of controversial prehistoric paintings on stone tablets recently discovered in a secret cave complex in the Pyrenees reveals the workings of the very first detective.

In “The Inimitable Affair” by Michael Mallory, Sherlock Holmes works to prevent a scandal that could rock the very foundation of Victorian England by destroying the reputation of one of the era's most respected and beloved figures, who cannot defend himself.
“The Beekeeper’s Dilemma” by Eric B. Ruark: faced with minding his own business or not, the old beekeeper proves that old habits die hard.
“A (Deliberately) Tangled Skein” by Bruce Harris, a non-fiction piece, explores the first Sherlock Holmes story “A Study in Scarlet,” whereby Dr. Watson intentionally deceives the reader by altering the narratives of two key characters.
“The Secrets Of Skin” by Thomas K. Carpenter—the saga continues—in ancient Alexandria, Magistrate Ovid must solve an unusual crime.
“A Death In Tadcaster” by Tim McDaniel: what if a Miss Marple-type of detective is not as sweet and innocent as she seems?
The Beginning Of The Final Problem” by S. Subramanian, presents a locked-room mystery, with a brief pre-history of Holmes's arch-enemy, in which a young Bertrand Russell (imported from Cambridge to London for the purposes of the story) is featured in a cameo role.
 

Available now on AMAZON

An interview

Here's an interview which has just been posted online:

http://mxpublishing.tumblr.com/post/178408884643/the-mx-book-of-new-sherlock-holmes-stories

Best wishes

Nik

New Sherlock Holmes Stories - 'Some untold cases'

It’s finally here, and it’s live: 

SHERLOCK HOLMES - New stories

The Kickstarter for the next volumes, Parts XI and XII, Some Untold Cases.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1229605719/the-mx-book-of-new-sherlock-holmes-stories-vol-11

Please share far and wide with your friends, fans, and family.

The campaign will run for only 18 days from today... Participants will get these volumes at a significant pre-publication discount. Please check out the link above.

"The MX New Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories” collection has over 100 of the world's leading Sherlock Holmes authors participating. The anthology includes only traditional stories set in the original Sherlock Holmes period. Between them, these authors have sold millions of books, and they come together for a common cause - Undershaw.

This is Volumes XI and XII bringing 34 new stories spread across the two volumes.

Full list of participating authors is below.
 
Part XI: 1880-1891 Jayantika Ganguly, Will Murray , Tracy Revels, Hugh Ashton, Matthew Simmonds, David Ruffle, Paul W. Nash, Mike Hogan, Craig Stephen Copland, Gayle Lange Puhl, Deanna Baran, Leslie Charteris and Denis Green, Roger Riccard, Robert Perret, Kevin P. Thornton, Stephen Herczeg, and M.A. Wilson and Richard Dean Starr, and a poem by Arlene Mantin Levy and Mark Levy

Part XII: 1894-1902 C.H. Dye, David Marcum, Thomas Fortenberry, Daniel D. Victor, Nik Morton, Craig Janacek, S. Subramanian, Jim French, Robert Stapleton, Nick Cardillo, Paul D. Gilbert, Mike Hogan, Derrick Belanger, John Linwood Grant, Mark Mower, Jane Rubino, and Arthur Hall.

Forewords in both volumes by Lyndsay Faye, Roger Johnson (SHSL), Melissa Grigsby (Stepping Stones School), David Marcum (Editor) and Steve Emecz (Publisher).

A Dance to the Music of Time (5 of 12)

The first four volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time are reviewed in earlier blogs.

***

Anthony Powell’s 1960 novel Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant begins in the late 1920s and is again narrated by Nick Jenkins, and reveals in flashback his first meetings with Mr Deacon (deceased in the previous book), Maclintick, Gossage, Carolo and Moreland. As before, there is little emotion in the narrative: ‘I listened to what was being said without feeling…’ (p29) – which could apply to the story so far, really. 

His friends Maclintick, Moreland and Barnby are intent on going to Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant. Apparently, ‘there used to the New Casanova, where the cooking was Italian and the decoration French eighteenth century. Further up the street was the Amoy, called by some Sam’s Chinese Restaurant. The New Casanova went into liquidation. Sam’s bought it up and moved over their pots and pans and chopsticks, so now you can eat treasure rice, or bamboo shoots fried with pork ribbons, under panels depicting scenes from the career of the Great Lover.’ (p32)

Powell’s narrator doesn’t involve the reader greatly in the scenes: ‘Maclintick and Barnby ordered something unadventurous from the dishes available; under Moreland’s guidance, I embarked upon one of the specialities of the house.’ (p34) You have to wonder if Powell could actually name any Chinese dishes; and the phrase ‘from the dishes available’ seems superfluous, as would ‘from the menu’.

Following from these reminiscences, we move to the 1930s and Nick reveals he has been married to Isobel, ‘perhaps a year’. (p58) The scandal about Mrs Simpson and, ultimately, The Abdication, is the talk of the town.

Lady Warminster is quite a character. She was ‘prone to fortune-tellers and those connected with divination. She was fond of retailing their startling predictions.’ (p74) Echoes of Nick’s Uncle Giles’s friend Mrs Erdleigh! One of her statements about the novelist St John Clarke: 'I always think one ought to be grateful to an author if one has liked even a small bit of a book’ (p75) is damning with faint praise indeed! By now, Clarke was ‘forgotten by the critics but remembered fairly faithfully by the circulating libraries…’ (p80)

Nick had lost touch with Widmerpool, primarily because his wife Isobel didn’t care for the man. ‘In any case I should never have gone out of my way to seek him, knowing, as one does with certain people, that the rhythm of life would sooner or later be bound to bring us together again.’ (p101)

When we do meet Widmerpool, he is more pompous than ever: ‘I regret to say that few, if any, of my school contemporaries struck me sufficiently favourably for me to go out of my way to employ their services… It is one of my principles in life to surround myself with persons whose conduct has satisfied me.’ (p122) And clearly he is not prescient: ‘Setting aside a European war, which I do not consider a strong probability in spite of certain disturbing features, I favour a reasoned optimism.’ (p123)

Maclintick is a sad figure, with a marriage that doesn’t work, he and his wife constantly arguing: ‘… for a moment I thought he was going to strike her; just as I had thought she might stick a dinner knife into him when I had been to their house…’ (p148)

There is a rare stab of emotion, however: ‘I suddenly felt horribly uncomfortable, as if ice-cold waer were dripping very gently, very slowly down my spine…’ (p151) when reminded of his old love Priscilla.

The narrator excuses his lack of emotional commitment in part: ‘... it is doubtful whether an existing marriage can ever be described directly in the first person and convey a sense of reality… if one has cast objectivity aside, the difficulties of presenting marriage are inordinate… I thought of some of these things on the way to the nursing home.’ (p96)

At the nursing home he meets Moreland and, of all people, Widmerpool. Here, Nick reveals to Moreland, an expectant father, that Isobel has just had a miscarriage. Moreland is not particularly sympathetic, bemoaning the fact that his wife Matilda’s constant false alarms were likely to make him bankrupt. (p98) These were the days before the National Health Service.

There’s a preponderance of names beginning with the letter ‘M’ – Moreland, Maclintick, Mona, Members, Milly, Magnus, Mildred (dumped girlfriend of Widmerpool), Mortimer, Matilda ( wife of Moreland)… Reminds me of the story ‘The Empty House’ in The Return of Sherlock Holmes: ‘My collection of M’s is a fine one…’ (p20) Though perhaps in this book’s case there’s an overabundance of names beginning with that letter.

Next: 6 – The Kindly Ones.

Writing market - Mystery Weekly Magazine

Here’s a paying market for writers of mysteries: Mystery Weekly Magazine.

The magazine is a labour of love for the husband and wife team of Publisher Charles F. Carter and Editor Kerry. The magazine website is http://www.mysteryweekly.com/ You can download a copy to your Kindle or get the paperback version from Amazon. You can submit stories via email.

In March Mystery Weekly Magazine was spotlighted in the American periodical, The Writer

Here’s an excerpt of that article, which just happens to mention my story due to appear later this year:

‘The Carters read submissions all year long, making detailed notes for writers who request feedback. They promote their authors widely, publishing excerpts and links to Mystery Weekly’s stories via email, the journal’s website, and social media.

‘One such author is writer and illustrator Nik Morton, whose story “The Very First Detective: The Killing Stone” will be published in the magazine’s Sherlock Holmes special issue, October 2018.

‘“It’s a prehistoric Holmes and Watson pastiche featuring Olmes and Otsun (Otsun is Olmes’s sidekick as well as being the clan’s medicine man),” Kerry explains. “Aside from being well-written, it has a unique setting, which makes it especially entertaining. We don’t get many submissions that cross genres, so any mysteries with fantasy, western, or speculative treatments definitely earn extra points.”’

https://www.writermag.com/2018/03/28/literary-spotlight-mystery-weekly/

Go for it!