March 8, 2010
Those who enjoyed the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes
starring Robert Downey Jr. may appreciate bestseller King's heavy-on-action, light-on-deduction 10th novel featuring Mary Russell and her much older husband, Conan Doyle's iconic detective. The plot picks up in the summer of 1924 right after the previous entry in the series, The Language of Bees
. A religious fanatic, Rev. Thomas Brothers, who seeks to unleash psychic energies through human sacrifice, has shot Holmes's artist son, Damian Adler, seriously wounding the young man. Holmes's desperate quest for medical help to save his son's life takes him to Holland, while Mary travels throughout Britain in an effort to keep Damian's half-Chinese daughter, Estelle, safe from Brothers and his allies. Cliffhanging situations abound as both leads benefit from the convenient appearance of extremely helpful strangers.
Starred review from February 15, 2010
Using short chapters and wielding her virtual pen like a burnished sword, King allows readers to race through this gloriously complex second half of last years Language of Bees. Sherlock Holmes is trying to get his gravely wounded son, the artist Damien Adler, out of England. Holmes wife, Mary Russell, is trying to protect Estelle, Damiens small daughter. Mycroft Holmes, recovering from a heart attack, suddenly goes missing. The madman responsible for Damiens injury was once married to Damiens recently murdered Chinese wife. A woodland character who could be the Green Man has a shell-shocked Great War past. The attacks on the Holmes family are specific, devious, cunning, and widespread. How Mary, Holmes, and Mycroft solve this conundrumusually while separated from one anotheris delineated in resplendent prose. The nascent and rocky development of air travel and international telephone lines; the effect of a winsome and intelligent child on perhaps overintellectual adults; descriptions of locales and places via scent, texture, and colorall of it makes for utterly absorbing reading. The end is both puzzling and uplifting. Things may not be quite what they seem. A few ends are left dangling: one can only imagine purposefully. Devoted King fans will probably reread both The Language of Bees and The God of the Hive and wonder about Holmes bees and what might come next.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)