Locked Rooms

By: Laurie R. King

Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin

Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King has won sweeping critical acclaim and an impressive collection of awards for her writing. Although other writers have tried, no one has matched King's ability to capture the allure of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.

Haunted by her dreams, Mary Russell arrives in San Francisco in 1924 to settle her parents' estate. But she quickly encounters a few surprises and learns there may be a great deal more to her childhood in this city than she ever knew. As Mary tries to cobble the pieces of her shadowy past together, her husband Holmes wonders if she may be repressing vital memories. And one thing seems certain; someone wants Mary's remembrances to stay buried.

King is at the top of her game with Locked Rooms, a wonderfully intricate and marvelously evocative mystery rich with unexpected twists and turns.

©2005 Laurie R. King (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"A highlight in an altogether outstanding series." (Booklist)
"Richly imagined....The narrative has real momentum, the characters are engaging, and the prose, as always, is intelligent, evocative, and graceful." (Publishers Weekly)
"A humdinger of a plot that deepens with each retelling of the dreams, plus pulsating descriptions of San Francisco's tent cities, looters, and flattened Chinatown in the 1906 quake's aftermath." (Kirkus Reviews)

One of the best so far

Great story. I especially enjoyed the characters Ms King created. The setting in San Francisco was enjoyable as well.

Good. Technical issues, however.

I like Jenny Sterlin as the narrator. She is good as she has been thru the whole series (occasional mispronunciations aside).

There is a significant technical problem. The chapters of the story are incorrectly separated in this presentation, so some chapters are jammed together and some are split. I suspect that this presentation was originally a CD collection and that the 'chapters' are what could have been recorded onto each CD and not divided as the author wrote it. Audible, your technical staff should listen to this presentation so it can be corrected. Also, another narrator at one point talks about which CD we were on, which broke the flow a bit.

Good book

I have enjoyed this book more than any I have read in a long time

Very enjoyable

I have followed the series and this helped in my enjoyment. I found towards the end it felt a bit extended and wordy but all in all a very enjoyable story and the Mary Russell, Sherlock interaction very believable. Definitely recommended and fills in a lot of gaps in the Mary Russell story.

surprising excellence

i say "surprising" not because i've read any of this author's previous works, but because i would never have guessed that sherlock holmes married and in san francisco could possibly be enthralling ... but it was. at first, i didnt think so and put the story aside for a month, but when i came back to it, i was immediately drawn in, partly by the excellent narration, but undeniably also by the skill of the author. i look forward to more by both of them.

4 pleasures with Mary Russell

Mary Russell herself, Laurie King's vivid and elegant language, the detailed challenges and opportunities of the time and place, and the story line with all it's twists.

more than a locked room mystery

At first I was disapppointed that the setting was California rather than post-WWI war England, but King managed to weave her usual engrossing web of fiction/ history/ psychology on the other side of the Atlantic, making the streets of San Franciso as vivid as those of London. Although Holmes is in the background, he's still a strong (and not always silent) presence. In the course of the narrative, Russell manages to unlock some of the memories she had walled up. Knowledge of the previous novels in the series is is not required for enjoyment - but will probabaly follow.

Very entertaining!!

Would you listen to Locked Rooms again? Why?

Absolutely - already have. Laurie King's writing brings Sherlock Holmes back to life.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Locked Rooms?

I still smile when I think of the immense relief the character Holmes must have felt as soon as Russell, after having "come back to herself," so to speak, stands before him with a gun pointed at his newly acquired irregular, Dashiell Hammett.

What about Jenny Sterlin’s performance did you like?

As always, she is a master.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Both. I particularly enjoy the way King develops her characters to include you into their personalities as well as their story.

Any additional comments?

Read it!

Locked Rooms

In order to understand the context of King's latest book it would be helpful to have read her previous books - although not necessary. Each of her books delves a bit deeper into Mary's background, which enriches her character. I love the series - the period descriptions are wonderful - and I enjoy the narrator who perfectly captures Mary's and Holme's "voice".

Eighth book of the series

Where does Locked Rooms rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I consider the Mary Russell / Sherlock Holmes books by Laurie King to be excellent and look forward to the next one as soon as the present book has been completed. Locked Rooms answered a lot of questions and was a very satisfying finish to the angst Mary suffered over the perceived guilt surrounding the death of her family. It was also written in a style somewhat different than the other books in the series of eight.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Mary is always my favourite character. She is improbably intelligent, outspoken and well travelled, married to a middle aged icon. Her many skills include the art of disguise as a detective in her own right, adept at self protection and attack, a degree in theology and chemistry from Oxford, master of many languages, an ardent feminist and the only other match to Holmes beyond Adler. Her stories are written over a span of almost 20 years, as memoirs, introduced by a series of writings delivered to a novelist with a request for any information on the writer, Mary Russell. Intriguing!
She is her usual enigmatic and factual self, with a little vulnerability thrown in. Mary has suffered dreams and memories that tormented her over the death of her family in an auto accident that she considers her fault. The resolution of this restores her equilibrium and brings piece of mind.

Which scene was your favorite?

The best scene is the one that takes place in San Francisco's Chinatown where Holmes, Russell and a group of 'irregulars' end up on a chase of two suspects. The Chinese man with them, Long, was the son of her parents' good friends. He calls on the crowd to prevent them from getting away. Russell confronts the two before they are arrested, and is able to solve the last mystery — a memory she has of a man who tampered with her parents' car the day they died.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Oh yes. I was driving a long distance when I started it and sat in the driveway for a while after I stopped to hear more.

Any additional comments?

King often brings interesting characters into her novels. Mary has met met T. E. Lawrence, J. R. R. Tolkien and Edmund Allenby in addition to several characters in specific novels. In The Game, the spy is one whom Holmes knows from his travels in India long ago, under the name Sigurson - Kimball O'Hara, known to the world by the name Rudyard Kipling called him, Kim. In A Letter of Mary, a fictional Lord Peter Wimsey makes a brief cameo appearance. In God of the Hive, modern-day Robin Goodfellow is introduced to help Russell. She also meets Holmes' old acquaintance, Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, the squire of Lew Trenchard, to help solve the mystery of the ghostly hound in The Moor. Locked Rooms is no exception where Holmes and Russell team up with a former Pinkerton agent Dashiell Hammett.