Book Log

The latest of the Kate Martinelli series turned out to be a strong contender for favorite in the series, up against To Play the Fool, Book 2. I was highly interested in this one in no small part because it was billed as having a tie-in with Ms. King’s other renowned series, the Mary Russells–and unlike the disappointing tenuous tie between Elizabeth Peter’s Amelia Peabody and Vicky Bliss series, I found this one to work very well indeed. The best thing about it? King never came right out and tied the series together in any obvious way in the narrative, but to those familiar with both series, the link was very obvious.

Holmesiana is very strong in this book, nonetheless. The victim is a Holmes fanatic whose ardor for the great detective is so bright that he’s remodeled the entire first floor of his house to be in character for the Holmesian era, and he leads a Holmes fan club wherein the members indulge in dressing in period costumes, meeting to eat period meals, and discussing the works of Arthur Conan Doyle to their hearts’ content. Our victim is also a passionate collector of Holmes-related memorabilia, though, and may well have been killed over a mysterious manuscript that may–or may not!–be a previously undiscovered work by Arthur Conan Doyle.

The provenance of this manuscript, and the possible real-life secrets it reveals, are the driving force of this case. And, of course, this is where the tie to the Mary Russell series comes in. The adventure depicted in the manuscript, written out for the reader to enjoy along with the main story, slots in very nicely with the events in Locked Rooms. Most cleverly, the protagonist is never outright identified as Holmes himself, leaving it nicely dubious for Kate and the others investigating the case as to whether it’s a genuine Doyle manuscript.

Meanwhile, some lovely advancement has happened in Kate and Lee’s domestic life. This book’s set a few years after Book 4, and now Kate and Lee have a small daughter, a development that I found an absolutely beautiful counterpoint to the murder investigation. Over the top as the victim and his Holmes-obsessed compatriots are, the peaceful home life Kate is leading with her beloved and their little girl gives the story a rock-solid grounding.

Overall, highly recommended for fans of the Mary Russells. If you’re not already reading the Kate Martinellis, this one does stand decently apart from the preceding ones, so you wouldn’t do yourself too much of a disservice reading this one first. (But you should go back and read the previous four anyway!) Five stars.

Like pretty much everything I’ve ever read by Laurie King, I quite enjoyed Night Work, the fourth installment of the Kate Martinelli series. Of the ones I’ve read lately, it’s my least favorite–but this is in no way a disparagement, since I’ve found that even a lesser King work is still an excellent read.

In this particular work, as is often the case with a mystery novel with any substance, two seemingly disparate plots eventually become intertwined. Kate begins the story investigating incidents surrounding an anonymous group, the Ladies of Perpetual Disgruntlement, launching retaliatory assaults upon men known to have abused women. At first their assaults were comparatively innocent, and they’ve won the grudging admiration of many in the police department–but now actual murders with the earmarks of the Ladies’ activities have begun to turn up. Meanwhile, an activist friend of Kate’s has asked her to look into the death by burning of a young bride in the city’s community of immigrants from India, and Kate has the challenge of trying to balance Roz’s request against the fact that Roz herself may be a suspect for the ongoing attacks on male abusers.

Thanks to not only the plot involving the young Indian bride but also the abused women’s shelter, there’s a lot of Kali imagery involved with King’s prose here. It might get a little heavy-handed for some readers, especially when Kali is presented as a vengeful symbol to whom the shelter’s residence might turn for guidance. Some readers may also find the scenes where Kate and her partner have Roz and her partner over for dinner, and engage in quite a bit of “aren’t those straight people just WEIRD?” conversation, a trifle heavyhanded. As a queer person myself, I did have a moment of “agh do we have to have the obligatory boggling over the straight people conversation?”

Still, though, I found the scenes in the women’s shelter very effective, as well as the general sense of queer community that Kate and her partner Lee and their friends have established with the other characters. I particularly liked the advancement in Kate’s and Lee’s relationship, as they’ve been working to mend the fractures between them caused by the violent events from earlier in the series. And I must admit, I was cheering on the Ladies of Perpetual Disgruntlement from page one.

Over all, four stars.

The second of Laurie R. King’s Kate Martinelli books, To Play the Fool, is a tightly written, thoughtful work, and was a nice re-introduction for me to the series. I’d previously read the third and then the first ones; going back to read the second filled in the blanks nicely on things that I’d missed. It’d been long enough since I’d read the previous books though that I’d forgotten much of the nuances of the series, but I recalled enough to find this perhaps the most enjoyable of the ones I’d read so far.

Much of the pleasure of this book lies with the individual Kate must investigate: a homeless wanderer known only as Brother Erasmus, a charismatic preacher revered by the street people of San Francisco and who is the primary suspect in her current murder case. She quickly learns that the man communicates only in literary quotations and by presenting himself as a Fool, which makes questioning him frustratingly difficult. Yet as she investigates him further, she finds that he has a tragic and moving past, which all comes together to make the man a vivid figure indeed.

Against this, Kate’s domestic situation is a wistful counterpoint. Her partner Lee is recovering from traumatic injuries suffered in the first novel, and she and Kate’s home life has undergone major upheavals as a result. Kate’s efforts to find ways to help Lee regain her confidence while dealing with her disability are quietly touching.

Overall, this was quite an enjoyable read. Four stars.