The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, Book 1

By: Laurie R. King

Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin

Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

The Twentieth-Anniversary Edition of the First Novel of the Acclaimed Mary Russell Series by Edgar Award–Winning Author Laurie R. King.

An Agatha Award Best Novel Nominee • Named One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association

In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles onto him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern, twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. They are soon called to Wales to help Scotland Yard find the kidnapped daughter of an American senator, a case of international significance with clues that dip deep into Holmes's past. Full of brilliant deduction, disguises, and danger, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, the first book of the Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes mysteries, is "remarkably beguiling" (The Boston Globe).

This program includes a preface read by the author.

©1994 Laurie R. King (P)2007 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

• Agatha Award, Best Novel Nominee

“Wonderfully original and entertaining . . . absorbing from beginning to end.” —Booklist

“King has stepped onto the sacred literary preserve of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, poached Holmes, and brilliantly brought him to life again.” —The Washington Post Book World

“A fascinating and often moving account of a friendship so unusual and so compelling that one almost accepts it as being historically real.” —The Denver Post

Sherlock Holmes Meets His Feminine Match

The promising conceit of Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Or on the Segregation of the Queen (1994) is that Mary Russell, who possesses deductive powers and mental brilliance the equal of Sherlock Holmes, met the great detective in 1915, when she was fifteen and he fifty-four, became his apprentice/confidante, began helping him solve mysteries as a fully equal partner, and now as an old woman in the 1990s is writing her memoirs about her relationship and experiences with Holmes. King cleverly has Russell explain at the outset that because Holmes became a figment of Dr. Watson's imagination, because Watson's stories about him had taken on a life of their own, and because now people are writing their own stories featuring Holmes, her detective may differ from the one in the reader's imagination. She also points out that her version will be more accurate than Watson's, because the good doctor always viewed his friend from a position of inferiority, whereas she was never awed by Holmes' deductive powers, possessing them herself to an extraordinary degree.

The "tall, sardonic recluse" and the "gangling, be-spectacled girl" met on the Sussex downs after Holmes had seemingly "retired" from detective work to live on a farm where he could keep and study bees, and Russell, whose parents and brother had been killed (and she emotionally and physically scarred) in an accident, had begun living with an unloving aunt on a nearby farm belonging to her mother's family. Both being "blessed or cursed with minds of hard brilliance that alienated all but the most tenacious" people, they felt an immediate affinity. The plot gets going in earnest a few years/chapters later, after Holmes has tempered, tested, and trained Russell, who has also been studying mathematics and theology at Oxford University, and they take on a kidnapping case that "reeks of failure."

Jenny Sterlin gives a fine reading of the novel. I like her Holmes, slightly deeper than Russell, and superiorly wry. Missing from the audiobook is King's cute preface in which she writes about receiving a trunk full of Holmes and Russell artifacts, including the manuscripts for all the stories written by Russell, as if she (and not King) were their author.

King writes plenty of cool lines one can imagine Holmes uttering:

--"My life has been plagued by criminals with instinct but no sense."
--"Guessing is a bad habit brought on by indolence."
--"Reading that drivel of Watson's a person would never know I've had any real failures."

Russell also has plenty of good lines:

--"Holmes, this is Russell you're talking to, not Mr. Watson or Mrs. Hudson."
--"No! I refuse to accept a gallant stupidity in place of rational necessity. Go."
--"Reminders of my femininity always took him by surprise. However, I could not hold him to blame, for they always took me by surprise as well."

And King writes plenty of pleasurable sentences, as in this passage: "Sherlock Holmes had invented his profession, and it fit him like a glove. We watched in admiration that verged on awe, as his love of challenge, his flair for the dramatic, his precise attention to detail, and his vulpine intelligence were called into play and transformed his thin face by putty and paint into that of his brother."

However, she also writes a few melodramatic clunkers:

--"Eccentricity had flowed into madness as malignant as a poisonous spider."
-- "I was struck again by the size of that man's [Holmes'] heart."

And Holmes stroking Russell's hair to soothe her to sleep once let alone twice seems a bridge too far in character revision. And Russell and Holmes diss Watson a bit too often. And a certain Holy Land "excursus" may not be entirely meet.

[SPARSE SPOILER ALERT]
Worst of all, the climax is unfortunate. After King has the criminal genius nemesis of Holmes and Russell go to so much effort arranging elaborate crimes, traps, and tricks to toy with them, and has our genius heroes go to so much effort figuring out the purpose and identity of their nemesis and setting up their own elaborate trap for her, to then have the climax come down to the Scene of Triumphant Gloating followed by the Scene of Diving and Scrambling for a Loaded Gun felt disappointing. For that matter, despite being an unobservant and illogical person, I guessed the nature, gender, and identity of the nemesis before Holmes and Russell do so, which made me think that a mystery story involving genius detectives has somehow failed.

I did enjoy the relationship between Holmes and Russell. I do like a 90-something woman writing her memoirs, because it adds a fine melancholy to everything that happens. I am intrigued by her provocatively signing her "author's preface" M. R. H. Fans of pastiches and fiction featuring Holmes should like this book.

Annoying

Any additional comments?

After listening to this, you will understand why Sherlock Holmes never married and why his sidekick was Dr. JOHN Watson and not Dr. JOAN Watson.

I took a chance in this book

The story warmed my heart and kept me interested.
This was a pleasant surprise. I will seek out additional work by this author.

Holmes sounds like a whiny brat

Would you be willing to try another one of Jenny Sterlin’s performances?

no, her female voice is great but her male voice is terrible

Any additional comments?

I couldn't finish listening because the voice of Holmes sounds like a whiny brat...I'll have to read the actual book

great story

What made the experience of listening to The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen the most enjoyable?

I love Laurie R King, and read this book when it first came out in 1994. A delight to imagine Mary telling it to me.

What did you like best about this story?

Such a novel revisiting of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and so believably done, Russell and Holmes develop a fine relationship, and its very believable.

What about Jenny Sterlin’s performance did you like?

She voices the characters admirably, not over the top, and her pacing is excellent.

5 star all the way

Where does The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I have not been so hooked from beginning to end of a book since the last Harry Potter book came out. I love the original Sherlock Holmes but could stop after one adventure. No I stayed up all night listening to this book. Fell asleep listening, blessed my self for my habit of bookmarking at end of each chapter finished. Next morning backed up to my last book mark and finished. That was Monday. Thursday night I have almost finished second time through hearing things I missed first time through and will probably start third time through if I can talk myself into waiting a month for my next credit subscription to get next book in series. This could be a budget buster for me.

Great book

Great book. Cannot wait to read the second one. So glad I was introduced to this author

A brilliant beginning

This is a brilliant beginning for what promises to be a great series. I had previously read one of the later books in the series, in paperback, and thoroughly enjoyed it. This audio-book is quite enjoyable. Laurie King has proven to me that she is an excellent at the writing art and craft. The narrator, if anything, enhances the story.

Old-school fun

Any additional comments?

I remember ripping through Sherlock Holmes when I was a teenager, and while I was never a die-hard fan, I loved the believably preposterous sleuthing and wild melodrama. Mary Russell is a great way of continuing the genre, without trying to pastiche Conan Doyle, which is very smart. Which I think sums up the book both in style and content.
The narration is good - well paced and with an interesting take on character voices.

Very entertaining.

At every chapter you have hopes for the orphaned Mary Russell. Intelligent and funny Mary and Sherlock Holmes set out to solve mysteries testing both their characters and friendship. Enjoyable.