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Kate Martinelli #5
The Art of Detection
In this thrilling new crime novel that ingeniously bridges Laurie R. King’s Edgar and Creasey Awards—winning Kate Martinelli series and her bestselling series starring Mary Russell, San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli crosses paths with Sherlock Holmes–in a spellbinding dual mystery that could come only from the “intelligent, witty, and complex” mind of New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King….
Kate Martinelli has seen her share of peculiar things as a San Francisco cop, but never anything quite like an ornate Victorian sitting room straight out of a Sherlock Holmes story–complete with violin, tobacco-filled Persian slipper, and gunshots in the wallpaper that spell out the initials of the late queen.
Philip Gilbert was a true Holmes fanatic, from his antiquated décor to his vintage wardrobe. And no mere fan of fiction’s great detective, but a leading expert with a collection of priceless memorabilia–a collection some would kill for.
And perhaps someone In his collection is a century-old manuscript purportedly written by Holmes himself–a manuscript that eerily echoes details of Gilbert’s own murder.
Now, with the help of her partner, Al Hawkin, Kate must follow the convoluted trail of a killer–one who may have trained at the feet of the greatest mind of all times.
Kate Martinelli has seen her share of peculiar things as a San Francisco cop, but never anything quite like an ornate Victorian sitting room straight out of a Sherlock Holmes story–complete with violin, tobacco-filled Persian slipper, and gunshots in the wallpaper that spell out the initials of the late queen.
Philip Gilbert was a true Holmes fanatic, from his antiquated décor to his vintage wardrobe. And no mere fan of fiction’s great detective, but a leading expert with a collection of priceless memorabilia–a collection some would kill for.
And perhaps someone In his collection is a century-old manuscript purportedly written by Holmes himself–a manuscript that eerily echoes details of Gilbert’s own murder.
Now, with the help of her partner, Al Hawkin, Kate must follow the convoluted trail of a killer–one who may have trained at the feet of the greatest mind of all times.
495 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
238 people are currently reading
1558 people want to read
About the author
Laurie R. King
135 books6,841 followersEdgar-winning mystery writer Laurie R. King writes series and standalone novels. Her official forum is
THE LRK VIRTUAL BOOK CLUB here on Goodreads--please join us for book-discussing fun.
King's 2018 novel, Island of the Mad, sees Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes travel from London's Bedlam to the glitter of Venice's Lido,where Young Things and the friends of Cole Porter pass Mussolini's Blackshirts in the streets. The Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series follows a brilliant young woman who becomes the student, then partner, of the great detective. [click here for an excerpt of the first in the series, The Beekeeper's Apprentice] The Stuyvesant and Grey series (Touchstone; The Bones of Paris) takes place in Europe between the Wars. The Kate Martinelli series follows an SFPD detective's cases on a female Rembrandt, a holy fool, and more. [Click for an excerpt of A Grave Talent]
King lives in northern California, which serves as backdrop for some of her books.
Please note that Laurie checks her Goodreads inbox intermittently, so it may take some time to receive a reply. A quicker response may be possible via email to info@laurierking.com.
THE LRK VIRTUAL BOOK CLUB here on Goodreads--please join us for book-discussing fun.
King's 2018 novel, Island of the Mad, sees Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes travel from London's Bedlam to the glitter of Venice's Lido,where Young Things and the friends of Cole Porter pass Mussolini's Blackshirts in the streets. The Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series follows a brilliant young woman who becomes the student, then partner, of the great detective. [click here for an excerpt of the first in the series, The Beekeeper's Apprentice] The Stuyvesant and Grey series (Touchstone; The Bones of Paris) takes place in Europe between the Wars. The Kate Martinelli series follows an SFPD detective's cases on a female Rembrandt, a holy fool, and more. [Click for an excerpt of A Grave Talent]
King lives in northern California, which serves as backdrop for some of her books.
Please note that Laurie checks her Goodreads inbox intermittently, so it may take some time to receive a reply. A quicker response may be possible via email to info@laurierking.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 475 reviews
January 9, 2016
To be honest, I read this book because of the connection to Sherlock Holmes. I do Love Laurie R. Kings books. But, I do prefer her Mary Russell series. Some day I may get to her Kate Martinelli series also.
Now it's been some years since I read this book, but I remember that I found it quite interesting. Especially the finding of a lost Sherlock Holmes manuscript that could be written by Sherlock Holmes himself.
You can without problem read this book without having read the other books in this series (I know because I did that) and I think this book will appeal Sherlock Holmes fans. I do plan to re-read this book to see if I find this book better nowadays.
Now it's been some years since I read this book, but I remember that I found it quite interesting. Especially the finding of a lost Sherlock Holmes manuscript that could be written by Sherlock Holmes himself.
You can without problem read this book without having read the other books in this series (I know because I did that) and I think this book will appeal Sherlock Holmes fans. I do plan to re-read this book to see if I find this book better nowadays.
August 1, 2014
Once you get past the author's bigotry and racism, you have a fascinating situation that should appeal to fans of mysteries in general and Sherlock Holmes in particular. But some readers may not make it that far, seeing as how King's prejudices are put forward so forcibly in the beginning of the book, before the elements of the case have had a chance to take hold of the reader, and some may give up after they determine that the mystery which they had hoped would dominate the plot always has to take a back seat to King's (and her character's) view of the world. As to the situation, what could be more appealing to a fan than an obsessive Holmes follower, a detailed recreation of 221B Baker Street in present-day San Francisco, a mysterious murder in a spooky locale, and hints of a long-lost Sherlock Holmes manuscript? Unfortunately, what should be the strongest elements of the story are used as mere set dressing, and the pacing of the story varies from painfully slow to abruptly staccato. It does not help that the brakes are applied to the main story for the purpose of inserting a poorly written Sherlock Holmes pastiche that exists solely to further a social agenda into the middle third of the book; the pastiche is ostensibly the motivator of the plot (and the murder) since it purports to be an authentic manuscript written by Conan Doyle, but its importance is lost on the reader since it's obvious from a textual analysis that it could never have been written by Holmes' creator, who was schooled in proper English grammar, something that should have been obvious to any of the Sherlock Holmes "experts" who populated the character list. The book fails to satisfy the two fan bases it should have appealed to most--police procedural and Sherlock Holmes--and that leaves the much smaller cult-of-personality crowd, either those who follow Laurie King's writings or those who follow the character Kate Martinelli because she's "such a good role model." As far as King's other work, I'm familiar with her Sherlock Holmes novels, which began with "The Bee Keeper's Apprentice," but it was not a series I followed beyond the first couple of books because she took the Great Detective hostage for her ideologies. As for the Martinelli character, this is the first story I've read (attracted solely by the Holmes aspect), but I was put off by a detective who did very little detecting, who saw police work as a distraction from her personal life, who treated everyone else with disdain, who was preoccupied with the sexual and physical attraction of witnesses, and who waded into the world of Sherlock Holmes armed with nothing more than misconceptions and misunderstandings about the character and his devotees. If you are a fan of either King or Martinelli, you might like this book, or at least judge it "okay" if you just can't get enough of anything related to Sherlock Holmes, but readers looking for more substance and mystery might want to give it a pass.
January 29, 2019
It was fun to watch how King combined her fondness for Sherlock Holmes with her modern detective series.
February 24, 2012
So this is sort of a Holmes pastiche, sort of not. And before I go any further: it's not really any good, but the pastiche elements themselves are definitely worth checking out.
It's set within King's non-Holmes series and essentially attempts to bring her Holmesian readers over with the promise of, well, basically a crossover. I've not read any of the prior material, though thankfully that didn't matter; as I understand it, there was a very long gap between this and the previous book, so we get a decent quantity of exposition.
The main plot revolves around a supposedly 'new' Holmes manuscript written by Doyle. It's ridiculous. It makes no sense. At all. I don't understand how the hell we're supposed to buy that anyone would ever, ever believe the manuscript was from Doyle, especially since all the characters in the novel are enthusiastic Holmesians. For a start, it revolves around queer issues. Then there's the fact that it's written from Holmes' perspective, and not in the way Doyle attempted to write such a thing. But the interesting part then lies in the fact that we're given this manuscript to read.
Because: guys! It's a Holmes pastiche that deals with queer issues! Trans* issues, in fact! (Er, which... the modern day characters refer to as 'gay', which seems... rather weird. And terrible. What does it say when the early 1900's style material seems almost more progressive than the 2000's style material in that regard..?) (I don't know, let's ask Moffat!) And it's got a good Holmes voice, and it's interesting, and it's really fucking obviously supposed to take place within the Mary Russell canon, which is interesting given the sheer level of 'Holmes might be less than 100% straight' stuff I picked up in it. HM.
But then we have the rest of the novel. And it's all terrible cliches, and bland characters, and 'haha Holmesians are weeeeird!' dullness. Boring writing, too. About the only saving grace is the modern-day Holmes parallel, who I'd have liked to see more of, but unfortunately he's dead so there you go.
Oh, and it has really trite pseudo-progressive stuff shoved in.
So I wouldn't recommend this unless you're a Mary Russell fan who wants to see Holmes be kind of queer. (In other words, unless you're basically me.)
It's set within King's non-Holmes series and essentially attempts to bring her Holmesian readers over with the promise of, well, basically a crossover. I've not read any of the prior material, though thankfully that didn't matter; as I understand it, there was a very long gap between this and the previous book, so we get a decent quantity of exposition.
The main plot revolves around a supposedly 'new' Holmes manuscript written by Doyle. It's ridiculous. It makes no sense. At all. I don't understand how the hell we're supposed to buy that anyone would ever, ever believe the manuscript was from Doyle, especially since all the characters in the novel are enthusiastic Holmesians. For a start, it revolves around queer issues. Then there's the fact that it's written from Holmes' perspective, and not in the way Doyle attempted to write such a thing. But the interesting part then lies in the fact that we're given this manuscript to read.
Because: guys! It's a Holmes pastiche that deals with queer issues! Trans* issues, in fact! (Er, which... the modern day characters refer to as 'gay', which seems... rather weird. And terrible. What does it say when the early 1900's style material seems almost more progressive than the 2000's style material in that regard..?) (I don't know, let's ask Moffat!) And it's got a good Holmes voice, and it's interesting, and it's really fucking obviously supposed to take place within the Mary Russell canon, which is interesting given the sheer level of 'Holmes might be less than 100% straight' stuff I picked up in it. HM.
But then we have the rest of the novel. And it's all terrible cliches, and bland characters, and 'haha Holmesians are weeeeird!' dullness. Boring writing, too. About the only saving grace is the modern-day Holmes parallel, who I'd have liked to see more of, but unfortunately he's dead so there you go.
Oh, and it has really trite pseudo-progressive stuff shoved in.
So I wouldn't recommend this unless you're a Mary Russell fan who wants to see Holmes be kind of queer. (In other words, unless you're basically me.)
May 6, 2011
I don't know how it happened, but I have read two books in a row in which the gay/lesbian secondary theme in the book has been heavy handed and off putting. I am getting very tired of it. The detective, Kate Martinelli has her perfect little lesbian family with her partner's all too perfect and wise 3 year old child. About half the book is devoted to these side issues and, predictably, all the gays are wonderful, misunderstood, and discriminated against and the rest of the characters are either wildly supportive of their lifestyle or complete jerks. There is preaching, dogmatism and intolerance on the alternative lifestyle proponents that is every bit as nauseating as the morality plays of the past. Kate has an attitude that is every bit as prejudiced, bigoted and sanctimonious as the people she demeans. Please, authors, give it a rest!! This has nothing to do with a fairly decent mystery so why include it?
The setting involves a group of people who are Sherlock Holmes aficionados and the murder of one of their members. When his body is found in a gun emplacement on the Marin headlands Kate and her partner, Al Hawkins, believe the murder has been committed elsewhere and the body has been staged. They trace the murder victim to his home which is awesome as well as eerie. On the bottom two floors, the house is a replica of a San Francisco home at the time of Sherlock Holmes even down to the gas lights and heat. On the third floor, where Philip Gilbert mainly lives, he has a computer, security system with a nanny camera and even an elevator, but the rest of the house allows him to immerse himself in the life and times of Sherlock Holmes.
The crux of the story involves a newly found manuscript supposedly written by Arthur Conan Doyle while he was visiting San Francisco and it involves a complicated murder which was similar to the staging of Philip Gilbert's murder. The detective work is quite good and the solution is interesting and plausible. The addition of all the Sherlock Holmes information makes the book work slogging through despite all the gay/lesbian posturing.
The setting involves a group of people who are Sherlock Holmes aficionados and the murder of one of their members. When his body is found in a gun emplacement on the Marin headlands Kate and her partner, Al Hawkins, believe the murder has been committed elsewhere and the body has been staged. They trace the murder victim to his home which is awesome as well as eerie. On the bottom two floors, the house is a replica of a San Francisco home at the time of Sherlock Holmes even down to the gas lights and heat. On the third floor, where Philip Gilbert mainly lives, he has a computer, security system with a nanny camera and even an elevator, but the rest of the house allows him to immerse himself in the life and times of Sherlock Holmes.
The crux of the story involves a newly found manuscript supposedly written by Arthur Conan Doyle while he was visiting San Francisco and it involves a complicated murder which was similar to the staging of Philip Gilbert's murder. The detective work is quite good and the solution is interesting and plausible. The addition of all the Sherlock Holmes information makes the book work slogging through despite all the gay/lesbian posturing.
November 16, 2012
Laurie R King can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes, and this book only served to confirm that, cleverly weaving her turn of the millennium Kate Martinelli series with her early 20th century Mary Russell series. Kate is investigating a present-day homicide, but the victim was an avid scholar and collector of anything Sherlock Holmes-related. In his collection is a century-old manuscript purportedly written by Holmes himself; a manuscript that eerily echoes details of Gilbert's own murder.
This embedded short story by Holmes takes place during the period of Mary's sojourn in San Francisco which is covered in Locked Rooms - one of my favourite Russell stories. Here again King manages to conjure Sherlock's voice (at least as represented in the Russell series - I've never read any Conan Doyle) so convincingly.
I loved this story within the story - who couldn't love singer Billy Birdsong? - and the echoes from LGBT history through to the modern day.
This embedded short story by Holmes takes place during the period of Mary's sojourn in San Francisco which is covered in Locked Rooms - one of my favourite Russell stories. Here again King manages to conjure Sherlock's voice (at least as represented in the Russell series - I've never read any Conan Doyle) so convincingly.
I loved this story within the story - who couldn't love singer Billy Birdsong? - and the echoes from LGBT history through to the modern day.
January 10, 2009
Laurie R. King writes two mystery series. One revolves around Kate Martinelli, a lesbian inspector of police in San Francisco. (I mention her sexual orientation not because it makes any difference to me, but because the author makes such a big deal of it.)
The second requires the reader to swallow the notion that Sherlock Holmes lived on well into the twentieth century, took as an apprentice a fifteen-year-old girl, Mary Russell. Holmes eventually marries Russell who is 46 years his junior. Despite the absurdity of the premise, there are some attractive features of the novels, mostly to do with the idea of Holmes approaching old age. Russell, who tells the stories in the first person, is discomfitingly priggish and writes in a style that was already old-fashioned when she was born in 1900.
"The Art of Detection" cross-pollinates these two lines. It is technically a Kate Martinelli mystery, but the crucial plot point is a 115-page previously-unknown Holmes story. Yes, the story is printed in full and makes up about a third of the novel.
The police procedural stuff, what there is of it, is really pretty good, what there is of it. Just when it is getting interesting, Martinelli intuits the answer. (This is a shortcoming of King's Mary Russell novels, too. The detection in those novels relies too little on deduction and too much on intuition.) There is also a completely implausible and unnecessary shoot-out at the end.
The second requires the reader to swallow the notion that Sherlock Holmes lived on well into the twentieth century, took as an apprentice a fifteen-year-old girl, Mary Russell. Holmes eventually marries Russell who is 46 years his junior. Despite the absurdity of the premise, there are some attractive features of the novels, mostly to do with the idea of Holmes approaching old age. Russell, who tells the stories in the first person, is discomfitingly priggish and writes in a style that was already old-fashioned when she was born in 1900.
"The Art of Detection" cross-pollinates these two lines. It is technically a Kate Martinelli mystery, but the crucial plot point is a 115-page previously-unknown Holmes story. Yes, the story is printed in full and makes up about a third of the novel.
The police procedural stuff, what there is of it, is really pretty good, what there is of it. Just when it is getting interesting, Martinelli intuits the answer. (This is a shortcoming of King's Mary Russell novels, too. The detection in those novels relies too little on deduction and too much on intuition.) There is also a completely implausible and unnecessary shoot-out at the end.
February 20, 2020
I was really looking forward to this one, because I had an idea that the Martinelli series and the Mary Russell series would merge here, with Kate investigating and discovering that Holmes was a real person. That's not what this book was at all.
It was fine - a perfectly workmanlike installment in the Martinelli series. But it wasn't what I wanted, and therefore disappointed. Unfair, sure. But still...
It was fine - a perfectly workmanlike installment in the Martinelli series. But it wasn't what I wanted, and therefore disappointed. Unfair, sure. But still...
August 25, 2020
The Art of Detection is billed as the coming together of the Martinelli series with the Russell/Holmes series; Martinelli is assigned to solve the murder of a Holmes fanatic who has apparently discovered a new Holmes story, written in the first person (and for fans of the Russell series, clearly taking place around the time of Locked Rooms). This was a bit of a disappointment; the action is somewhat plodding and the characters not as fully realized as in previous books, though the exploration of the society of Holmes fans is interesting.
October 5, 2025
Somewhere along the way in her outstanding Mary Russell series, writer Laurie R. King mentions her Sherlock Holmes crossover, "The Art of Detection." As detective Kate Martinelli finishes reading a mysterious manuscript, possibly a lost Holmes story, she states, "This story was as outrageous and colorful as....well, a revue of drag queens." I sincerely hope that Ms. King is working on more Holmes/Russell adventures, but here was an adequate stand-in until that time!
October 28, 2017
Laurie R. King, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Shall it be your excellent characters? The air of whimsy you allow them as they pursue deadly serious evidence? The amount of professional respect the colleagues demonstrate? Perhaps it is the healthy relationships you inject into the lives of your characters?
In this case, it was the clever way you wove the Holmes we've come to know through Russell's eyes into the warp and weft of Kate's story.
The way the storylines crossed each other and back into themselves offered hints, but never really spelled out the culprit. I like that. I don't like guessing correctly, but if I do, I like it when the author manages to keep me interested enough to see if I'm right.
This was the first Kate Martinelli book I've read, and I'll definitely go back and read the others. She's a strong character, without the chip-on-the-shoulder cliche attitude given to way too many lesbian characters. Her relationship is important to her, her family is important to her and her connectedness to her partner, Al, is respectful and affirming.
I'm not going to dig into the plot here. You have to read it to 'get' it, but briefly, the story revolves around a group of Sherlock devotees who meet for dinner and role-playing. Additionally, there is the dog-eat-dog world of collectors - people who go after first editions, autographed editions, original manuscripts, antiques, and other memorabilia attached to the world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his famed character, Sherlock Holmes. There is the required murder, and in the middle of the story there is yet another story. Those of us who read the Russell books KNOW who the author is, without question. In this book, he is not real. Maybe.
The parallels between the typed manuscript that figures in this book, and the plot surrounding the murder and subsequent investigation, are well conjoined. I didn't find them to be forced, or stretched to the limit of believability. That's partly due to the way the characters are allowed to do their own thing without interference from the writer. She doesn't force them in any specific direction, she merely records. This is a gift that many writers only wish they had!
In solving the mystery, Kate and her partner follow protocol, try to stay within budgetary limits, show respect to the forensic team (without idolizing them a la Abby Sciutto), and know how to drop back and regroup when necessary. Throughout we get the idea that this is a partnership that can finish each other's sentences, understands what is important to each, and the way in which they support each other for the good of the team.
As a kind of sidelight to the Russell books, I really enjoyed this one and look forward to exploring Kate Martinelli in her own right.
In this case, it was the clever way you wove the Holmes we've come to know through Russell's eyes into the warp and weft of Kate's story.
The way the storylines crossed each other and back into themselves offered hints, but never really spelled out the culprit. I like that. I don't like guessing correctly, but if I do, I like it when the author manages to keep me interested enough to see if I'm right.
This was the first Kate Martinelli book I've read, and I'll definitely go back and read the others. She's a strong character, without the chip-on-the-shoulder cliche attitude given to way too many lesbian characters. Her relationship is important to her, her family is important to her and her connectedness to her partner, Al, is respectful and affirming.
I'm not going to dig into the plot here. You have to read it to 'get' it, but briefly, the story revolves around a group of Sherlock devotees who meet for dinner and role-playing. Additionally, there is the dog-eat-dog world of collectors - people who go after first editions, autographed editions, original manuscripts, antiques, and other memorabilia attached to the world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his famed character, Sherlock Holmes. There is the required murder, and in the middle of the story there is yet another story. Those of us who read the Russell books KNOW who the author is, without question. In this book, he is not real. Maybe.
The parallels between the typed manuscript that figures in this book, and the plot surrounding the murder and subsequent investigation, are well conjoined. I didn't find them to be forced, or stretched to the limit of believability. That's partly due to the way the characters are allowed to do their own thing without interference from the writer. She doesn't force them in any specific direction, she merely records. This is a gift that many writers only wish they had!
In solving the mystery, Kate and her partner follow protocol, try to stay within budgetary limits, show respect to the forensic team (without idolizing them a la Abby Sciutto), and know how to drop back and regroup when necessary. Throughout we get the idea that this is a partnership that can finish each other's sentences, understands what is important to each, and the way in which they support each other for the good of the team.
As a kind of sidelight to the Russell books, I really enjoyed this one and look forward to exploring Kate Martinelli in her own right.
March 17, 2010
I read this book after reading "the Beekeeper's Apprentice", also by Laurie King. She writes two series - one a Sherlock Holmes series and another a present day San Francisco detective series. This book is of the San Francisco ilk, but involves the murder of a man obsessed with Sherlock Holmes.
I didn't really like the book too much. Good things were that it was readable and the descriptions of San Francisco were vivid. On the bad side, despite being sherlockian, the plot left a lot to be desired. Several times I silently was saying "what@!". The story within a story was about a B-/C+, also my final grade for the book. I'm skipping the San Francisco books and going back to London.
I didn't really like the book too much. Good things were that it was readable and the descriptions of San Francisco were vivid. On the bad side, despite being sherlockian, the plot left a lot to be desired. Several times I silently was saying "what@!". The story within a story was about a B-/C+, also my final grade for the book. I'm skipping the San Francisco books and going back to London.
May 18, 2010
No art in detection here, more like the tedium of detection. Too long and too many dead ends that could have been shortened. The short story within the story was actually more enjoyable. Plot just dragged on and on with little action and the ending was a bit of a surprise. However,by then you just wanted it to end and didn't care what happened. Won't be reading anymore of this series. The last chapter(after the case is wrapped up) about Kate getting officially married was irrelevant and not necessary. I already considered them officially married even if they weren't. Just another example of the never-ending story.
May 20, 2020
Bev Hankins
This was a very quick read...finished it up early this evening. It is a nicely plotted mystery that manages to bring the atmosphere of Holmes' era to modern day San Francisco. The story revolves around a Holmes fanatic who is killed in what looks to be precisely the manner of a murder in a recently discovered "lost Sherlock Holmes story." Is the story authentic? Was the victim killed because of the manuscript or was it more personal and more ancient reasons? King does an excellent job of pulling off the story within a story and tying all the ends together. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
But the blurbs on the back of the book are a bit misleading.....
This was a very quick read...finished it up early this evening. It is a nicely plotted mystery that manages to bring the atmosphere of Holmes' era to modern day San Francisco. The story revolves around a Holmes fanatic who is killed in what looks to be precisely the manner of a murder in a recently discovered "lost Sherlock Holmes story." Is the story authentic? Was the victim killed because of the manuscript or was it more personal and more ancient reasons? King does an excellent job of pulling off the story within a story and tying all the ends together. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
But the blurbs on the back of the book are a bit misleading.....
July 17, 2024
I'm really torn on this book. I adore King's Sherlock Holmes and loved The Tale of Billie Birdsong. Unfortunately, Kate and company isnt as compelling as Sherlock and friends. Maybe it's because this was the 5th entry in the Martinelli series, but I didnt connect to the modern day characters as much as I wanted to.
All I can say is, Ms. King, keep those Holmes entries coming please!!
(Reviewed 8/13/11)
All I can say is, Ms. King, keep those Holmes entries coming please!!
(Reviewed 8/13/11)
June 4, 2021
Love the cross-over in two of my favorite series -- in this combination of King’s Kate Martinelli series, with a mystery involving a super serious Sherlock Holmes fanatic, which ties in with King’s other series Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. A murder patterned after a story about a murder set in 1920s San Francisco.
March 14, 2021
Probably my favorite of the Martinelli stories. A story within a story. Very through in the detective process. Crossover to Holmes. And fun to see the family development among the characters. Glad I read this series in order.
January 14, 2024
Was a reread from many years ago. It’s got a lot of Easter eggs for MRH fans as well as a nice little mystery for Kate. So nice to visit Kate and Lee and Hawkins again and see what they’re up to. And the ending was 💕💕💕
June 17, 2020
I'm a huge fan of Laurie King's Mary Russell series and have always wanted to check out her other series. I thought "The Art of Detection" might be a good choice since it has a Sherlock Holmes angle and connects with the Russell series. I was wrong. Unfortunately, I never got caught up in the story. The first few chapters read like a massive information dump and the story plodded along like a truck stuck in quicksand. Quite honestly, I didn't finish the book. I admit to preferring historical mysteries, though I do read an occasional contemporary mystery series, but "The Art of Detection" just did not grip my interest. If you are a big fan of contemporary mysteries, you might like this book better than I did. I gave 3 stars because Laurie King knows how to put a sentence together, but I'll stick with Russell & Holmes from here on out.
January 31, 2025
I'm still having difficulty getting into this series by King who's Mary Russell books I love. I liked the Sherlock Holmes element of this story though.
November 28, 2019
21st century San Francisco murder mystery with Sherlock Holmes memorabilia smoothly sutured in.
March 30, 2021
One of the best!
September 8, 2025
Laurie R. King’s The Art of Detection (2006), the fifth entry in her Kate Martinelli detective series, is one of those rare novels that manages to be two things at once without collapsing under the weight of its own ambition.
On the surface, it is a smart, sharply observed police procedural, grounded in the foggy realism of San Francisco crime scenes and forensic routines. Beneath that, however, lies a sly, meta-literary experiment: a Sherlock Holmes pastiche that takes its place in the long, unruly tradition of writers who have tried to keep the great detective alive, sometimes reverently, sometimes mischievously. Reading it as part of a binge through the pastiches that orbit Conan Doyle’s original canon, one cannot help but admire the way King lets the two halves of her novel—one modern, one Victorian—speak to each other across time, across genre, and across the cultural obsession that Holmes continues to generate.
King is, of course, no stranger to Holmes. By the time she wrote The Art of Detection, she was already well known for her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, a sequence of novels that imagines Holmes in retirement, married to the much younger and fiercely intelligent Mary Russell. Those books are unapologetically romantic, revisionist, and audacious in their reimagining of Holmes as a partner in a marriage of equals.
With Martinelli, however, she is in a different mode altogether: the Martinelli novels are hard-edged procedurals, police stories with a contemporary San Francisco sensibility. In The Art of Detection, these two worlds briefly overlap—not in a literal crossover, but in the form of a manuscript, a “lost Holmes story” that appears at the centre of a murder investigation. The device allows King to indulge her Holmesian instincts while keeping her feet planted in the realism of Martinelli’s investigative world.
The novel begins with the murder of Philip Gilbert, a Sherlockian collector of the most fastidious and obsessive kind. Gilbert is found dead in an abandoned military bunker, the kind of liminal urban space that King evokes with her usual sharp eye for setting. His death seems to be connected not only to his somewhat abrasive personality but also to his peculiar treasures: rare books, Holmes memorabilia, and, crucially, a manuscript that purports to be a hitherto unpublished Holmes tale written by Conan Doyle himself.
This discovery sets the plot in motion, and from the moment the manuscript appears, the novel splits into two alternating tracks: Martinelli’s present-day investigation, with its cast of suspects and colleagues, and the Victorian “Holmes story,” presented in full to the reader.
It is here that King takes her boldest step. Many pastiche writers gesture toward the idea of “lost manuscripts,” invoking the “untold tales” hinted at in Watson’s chronicles. King goes further: she actually gives us the missing story. The embedded tale, titled “The Adventure of the Curious Affair of the Oxford Street Irregulars” (though the title varies in critical discussions), is not simply an ornament or a teaser—it is a fully fledged Holmes narrative, written in a convincing simulacrum of Watson’s voice. To read it is to enter a pastiche within a pastiche: a fictional detective in a contemporary novel reading what may or may not be a fictional story by a historical author who himself created the fictional detective. The recursion is dizzying, but King’s control of tone keeps it from feeling like a game for its own sake.
What makes the novel flow, and what prevents it from collapsing into gimmickry, is King’s ability to braid together her themes. The Holmes manuscript is not a detachable appendix but a mirror of Martinelli’s case. The story Holmes investigates in the Victorian portion resonates with the circumstances surrounding Gilbert’s death, and more importantly, it reflects the cultural persistence of Holmes himself. Why do people like Gilbert collect, fetishize, and sometimes kill over Holmesiana? Why has Holmes become more than a character—an entire subculture? King suggests that the answer lies in the detective’s ability to embody rationality, order, and clarity in a world that feels perpetually disordered.
At the same time, King refuses to romanticize the Sherlockian subculture. Gilbert is not depicted as an innocent enthusiast but as a brittle, sometimes unpleasant man whose obsessive passion isolates him from others. The community of Holmes fans, depicted around him, is rendered with affectionate satire: pedants quibbling over chronology, enthusiasts staging re-enactments, collectors squabbling over the authenticity of relics. This is not unlike the way Conan Doyle himself sometimes regarded his own creation—with a mix of pride, weariness, and bemusement. King captures that ambivalence beautifully.
Placed in the context of Holmes pastiches, The Art of Detection occupies a very curious position. Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974) launched the modern wave of serious Holmes pastiches by treating Holmes as if he were a historical figure whose untold story needed to be unearthed. Meyer played with the conceit of “found manuscripts,” even going so far as to footnote his novel with mock-scholarly apparatus. Michael Dibdin’s The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978) took the conceit to darker, more destructive ends, entwining Holmes with Jack the Ripper and undermining the detective’s mythos. King, by contrast, does not seek to dethrone Holmes or to add a shocking twist to his biography. Instead, she wants to explore the phenomenon of Holmes itself: the way readers and collectors relate to him, the way his fictional presence persists, the way his voice can be convincingly resurrected within another story.
There is something deliciously meta about the fact that the embedded Holmes story is itself a pastiche written by King, masquerading as Conan Doyle. Within the fiction, characters debate whether the manuscript is genuine or fraudulent, and as readers, we find ourselves pulled into the same game: is this “real” Watson, or is it only King’s imitation? That doubleness is the point. The Holmes we all read now is, in a sense, a collective pastiche. We read Conan Doyle, yes, but we also read through layers of interpretation, adaptation, parody, and homage. Holmes has become a shared text, owned by no one and everyone. King dramatizes that cultural condition within her novel.
The pleasures of The Art of Detection are not purely theoretical, however. As a detective story, it is genuinely engaging. Martinelli is a grounded, relatable investigator, and the case moves with brisk energy through its twists and revelations. King balances the forensic detail of modern policing with the old-fashioned satisfaction of a puzzle. The contrast between Martinelli’s empirical procedures—fingerprints, alibis, witness interviews—and Holmes’s deductive bravura is part of the novel’s architecture. One world prizes lab reports and chain-of-evidence; the other thrives on intuition, disguise, and leaps of logic. Yet both, King suggests, are united by the detective’s fundamental impulse: to find patterns in chaos.
For Holmes purists, the embedded tale may be the greater delight. King’s ventriloquism of Watson’s voice is deft, affectionate without being cloying. She captures the cadences of late-Victorian prose, the slightly pompous self-regard of Watson’s narration, the brisk clarity of Holmes’s utterances. Unlike some pasticheurs who overload Holmes with caricatured quirks, King reins herself in, writing a Holmes who feels plausible, consistent with the canon, but also subtly modern in his attitudes. The story itself has enough of the canonical flavour—the fog, the hansom cabs, the peculiar client, the denouement in Holmes’s Baker Street rooms—to satisfy the appetite for familiarity.
And yet, it would be unfair to call The Art of Detection merely a treat for Holmes fans. For readers who have followed Kate Martinelli across the earlier four novels, this book represents a maturing of the series. Martinelli is more seasoned here, more self-assured, but also wearier. Her personal life, her partnership with Lee, and her struggles within the police hierarchy all provide texture that grounds the novel in lived experience. The Holmes manuscript, in this light, becomes not just a literary device but a metaphor for the persistence of stories themselves—how narratives from the past echo into the present, how the cases of long-dead detectives can illuminate the crimes of today.
In the long catalogue of Holmes pastiches, then, where does King’s book belong? It is neither a full-blown alternate history like Meyer’s, nor a sensational deconstruction like Dibdin’s, nor a playful parody like many others.
It is something more hybrid: a pastiche nested within another genre, a dialogue between the procedural and the Victorian, a novel that both honours Holmes and gently interrogates the obsession that surrounds him. If Meyer sought to heal Holmes, and Dibdin sought to wound him, King seeks to reflect him back to us through the prism of our own reading culture.
For a binge-reviewer of pastiches, the experience of reading The Art of Detection is like finding a secret door in a house you thought you knew. You expect the Martinelli procedural, and you get it. But then, halfway through, you are transported back to Baker Street, as though some slipstream has opened between 1895 and 2006. The novel oscillates between times, but instead of feeling disjointed, it feels oddly seamless, as though reminding us that Holmes never really left. He continues to surface, again and again, wherever writers and readers feel the tug of mystery.
The title itself, The Art of Detection, is telling. It is not simply about solving a crime; it is about detection as an aesthetic, almost a literary art. Holmes, after all, was always more than a detective: he was a performer, a rhetorician, a storyteller of deduction. Martinelli, in her quieter, methodical way, is also an artist of detection. King draws a line between them, across genres and centuries, suggesting that the detective’s work is, in its essence, about making meaning—about sculpting coherence out of confusion.
By the final pages, the murder is solved, the manuscript’s fate is sealed, and the two narratives—the contemporary and the Victorian—fold back into one another. However, what lingers is not merely the satisfaction of a case closed. What lingers is the sense that Holmes is still with us, not as a dusty relic, but as an endlessly renewable figure, adaptable to any era, any genre, any voice. King’s contribution is to show that pastiche itself can be art, that the act of imitation and homage can generate fresh meaning.
In the end, The Art of Detection is both a love letter to Sherlock Holmes and a clear-eyed meditation on the culture that has grown up around him. It entertains, it puzzles, it satirizes, it pays tribute. And in doing so, it earns its place not only as the most unusual of the Martinelli novels but also as one of the more thoughtful and layered entries in the sprawling library of Holmes pastiches.
For readers like us, binging our way through the countless reinventions of Baker Street, King’s novel offers a reminder: pastiche is not merely about copying the past, but about conversing with it, weaving it into the fabric of new stories. Holmes is detection, detection is art, and art is, above all, alive.
On the surface, it is a smart, sharply observed police procedural, grounded in the foggy realism of San Francisco crime scenes and forensic routines. Beneath that, however, lies a sly, meta-literary experiment: a Sherlock Holmes pastiche that takes its place in the long, unruly tradition of writers who have tried to keep the great detective alive, sometimes reverently, sometimes mischievously. Reading it as part of a binge through the pastiches that orbit Conan Doyle’s original canon, one cannot help but admire the way King lets the two halves of her novel—one modern, one Victorian—speak to each other across time, across genre, and across the cultural obsession that Holmes continues to generate.
King is, of course, no stranger to Holmes. By the time she wrote The Art of Detection, she was already well known for her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, a sequence of novels that imagines Holmes in retirement, married to the much younger and fiercely intelligent Mary Russell. Those books are unapologetically romantic, revisionist, and audacious in their reimagining of Holmes as a partner in a marriage of equals.
With Martinelli, however, she is in a different mode altogether: the Martinelli novels are hard-edged procedurals, police stories with a contemporary San Francisco sensibility. In The Art of Detection, these two worlds briefly overlap—not in a literal crossover, but in the form of a manuscript, a “lost Holmes story” that appears at the centre of a murder investigation. The device allows King to indulge her Holmesian instincts while keeping her feet planted in the realism of Martinelli’s investigative world.
The novel begins with the murder of Philip Gilbert, a Sherlockian collector of the most fastidious and obsessive kind. Gilbert is found dead in an abandoned military bunker, the kind of liminal urban space that King evokes with her usual sharp eye for setting. His death seems to be connected not only to his somewhat abrasive personality but also to his peculiar treasures: rare books, Holmes memorabilia, and, crucially, a manuscript that purports to be a hitherto unpublished Holmes tale written by Conan Doyle himself.
This discovery sets the plot in motion, and from the moment the manuscript appears, the novel splits into two alternating tracks: Martinelli’s present-day investigation, with its cast of suspects and colleagues, and the Victorian “Holmes story,” presented in full to the reader.
It is here that King takes her boldest step. Many pastiche writers gesture toward the idea of “lost manuscripts,” invoking the “untold tales” hinted at in Watson’s chronicles. King goes further: she actually gives us the missing story. The embedded tale, titled “The Adventure of the Curious Affair of the Oxford Street Irregulars” (though the title varies in critical discussions), is not simply an ornament or a teaser—it is a fully fledged Holmes narrative, written in a convincing simulacrum of Watson’s voice. To read it is to enter a pastiche within a pastiche: a fictional detective in a contemporary novel reading what may or may not be a fictional story by a historical author who himself created the fictional detective. The recursion is dizzying, but King’s control of tone keeps it from feeling like a game for its own sake.
What makes the novel flow, and what prevents it from collapsing into gimmickry, is King’s ability to braid together her themes. The Holmes manuscript is not a detachable appendix but a mirror of Martinelli’s case. The story Holmes investigates in the Victorian portion resonates with the circumstances surrounding Gilbert’s death, and more importantly, it reflects the cultural persistence of Holmes himself. Why do people like Gilbert collect, fetishize, and sometimes kill over Holmesiana? Why has Holmes become more than a character—an entire subculture? King suggests that the answer lies in the detective’s ability to embody rationality, order, and clarity in a world that feels perpetually disordered.
At the same time, King refuses to romanticize the Sherlockian subculture. Gilbert is not depicted as an innocent enthusiast but as a brittle, sometimes unpleasant man whose obsessive passion isolates him from others. The community of Holmes fans, depicted around him, is rendered with affectionate satire: pedants quibbling over chronology, enthusiasts staging re-enactments, collectors squabbling over the authenticity of relics. This is not unlike the way Conan Doyle himself sometimes regarded his own creation—with a mix of pride, weariness, and bemusement. King captures that ambivalence beautifully.
Placed in the context of Holmes pastiches, The Art of Detection occupies a very curious position. Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974) launched the modern wave of serious Holmes pastiches by treating Holmes as if he were a historical figure whose untold story needed to be unearthed. Meyer played with the conceit of “found manuscripts,” even going so far as to footnote his novel with mock-scholarly apparatus. Michael Dibdin’s The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978) took the conceit to darker, more destructive ends, entwining Holmes with Jack the Ripper and undermining the detective’s mythos. King, by contrast, does not seek to dethrone Holmes or to add a shocking twist to his biography. Instead, she wants to explore the phenomenon of Holmes itself: the way readers and collectors relate to him, the way his fictional presence persists, the way his voice can be convincingly resurrected within another story.
There is something deliciously meta about the fact that the embedded Holmes story is itself a pastiche written by King, masquerading as Conan Doyle. Within the fiction, characters debate whether the manuscript is genuine or fraudulent, and as readers, we find ourselves pulled into the same game: is this “real” Watson, or is it only King’s imitation? That doubleness is the point. The Holmes we all read now is, in a sense, a collective pastiche. We read Conan Doyle, yes, but we also read through layers of interpretation, adaptation, parody, and homage. Holmes has become a shared text, owned by no one and everyone. King dramatizes that cultural condition within her novel.
The pleasures of The Art of Detection are not purely theoretical, however. As a detective story, it is genuinely engaging. Martinelli is a grounded, relatable investigator, and the case moves with brisk energy through its twists and revelations. King balances the forensic detail of modern policing with the old-fashioned satisfaction of a puzzle. The contrast between Martinelli’s empirical procedures—fingerprints, alibis, witness interviews—and Holmes’s deductive bravura is part of the novel’s architecture. One world prizes lab reports and chain-of-evidence; the other thrives on intuition, disguise, and leaps of logic. Yet both, King suggests, are united by the detective’s fundamental impulse: to find patterns in chaos.
For Holmes purists, the embedded tale may be the greater delight. King’s ventriloquism of Watson’s voice is deft, affectionate without being cloying. She captures the cadences of late-Victorian prose, the slightly pompous self-regard of Watson’s narration, the brisk clarity of Holmes’s utterances. Unlike some pasticheurs who overload Holmes with caricatured quirks, King reins herself in, writing a Holmes who feels plausible, consistent with the canon, but also subtly modern in his attitudes. The story itself has enough of the canonical flavour—the fog, the hansom cabs, the peculiar client, the denouement in Holmes’s Baker Street rooms—to satisfy the appetite for familiarity.
And yet, it would be unfair to call The Art of Detection merely a treat for Holmes fans. For readers who have followed Kate Martinelli across the earlier four novels, this book represents a maturing of the series. Martinelli is more seasoned here, more self-assured, but also wearier. Her personal life, her partnership with Lee, and her struggles within the police hierarchy all provide texture that grounds the novel in lived experience. The Holmes manuscript, in this light, becomes not just a literary device but a metaphor for the persistence of stories themselves—how narratives from the past echo into the present, how the cases of long-dead detectives can illuminate the crimes of today.
In the long catalogue of Holmes pastiches, then, where does King’s book belong? It is neither a full-blown alternate history like Meyer’s, nor a sensational deconstruction like Dibdin’s, nor a playful parody like many others.
It is something more hybrid: a pastiche nested within another genre, a dialogue between the procedural and the Victorian, a novel that both honours Holmes and gently interrogates the obsession that surrounds him. If Meyer sought to heal Holmes, and Dibdin sought to wound him, King seeks to reflect him back to us through the prism of our own reading culture.
For a binge-reviewer of pastiches, the experience of reading The Art of Detection is like finding a secret door in a house you thought you knew. You expect the Martinelli procedural, and you get it. But then, halfway through, you are transported back to Baker Street, as though some slipstream has opened between 1895 and 2006. The novel oscillates between times, but instead of feeling disjointed, it feels oddly seamless, as though reminding us that Holmes never really left. He continues to surface, again and again, wherever writers and readers feel the tug of mystery.
The title itself, The Art of Detection, is telling. It is not simply about solving a crime; it is about detection as an aesthetic, almost a literary art. Holmes, after all, was always more than a detective: he was a performer, a rhetorician, a storyteller of deduction. Martinelli, in her quieter, methodical way, is also an artist of detection. King draws a line between them, across genres and centuries, suggesting that the detective’s work is, in its essence, about making meaning—about sculpting coherence out of confusion.
By the final pages, the murder is solved, the manuscript’s fate is sealed, and the two narratives—the contemporary and the Victorian—fold back into one another. However, what lingers is not merely the satisfaction of a case closed. What lingers is the sense that Holmes is still with us, not as a dusty relic, but as an endlessly renewable figure, adaptable to any era, any genre, any voice. King’s contribution is to show that pastiche itself can be art, that the act of imitation and homage can generate fresh meaning.
In the end, The Art of Detection is both a love letter to Sherlock Holmes and a clear-eyed meditation on the culture that has grown up around him. It entertains, it puzzles, it satirizes, it pays tribute. And in doing so, it earns its place not only as the most unusual of the Martinelli novels but also as one of the more thoughtful and layered entries in the sprawling library of Holmes pastiches.
For readers like us, binging our way through the countless reinventions of Baker Street, King’s novel offers a reminder: pastiche is not merely about copying the past, but about conversing with it, weaving it into the fabric of new stories. Holmes is detection, detection is art, and art is, above all, alive.
October 3, 2023
Spoiler alert.
The modern-day part of the story - just okay. The story-within-the-story manuscript purported to have been written by A.C. Doyle - it was a good story, but even a casual reader of Sherlock Holmes could tell it was not written in the early 20th century. The language just didn't feel right. And the so-called Holmes expert couldn't tell? Really?? Plus the whole question of the authenticity of the manuscript was dropped once the murder was solved.
The modern-day part of the story - just okay. The story-within-the-story manuscript purported to have been written by A.C. Doyle - it was a good story, but even a casual reader of Sherlock Holmes could tell it was not written in the early 20th century. The language just didn't feel right. And the so-called Holmes expert couldn't tell? Really?? Plus the whole question of the authenticity of the manuscript was dropped once the murder was solved.
December 16, 2013
This is the last Martinelli book of the series and was written six years after the fourth book in the series “Night work”. The book is set in modern day San Francisco and Kate Martinelli is a homicide Inspector with the SFPD. She is called to former gun emplacement on an old military base turn into a State Park in the Marin highlands where a man’s body has been found. As the man lived in San Francisco and it was obvious the body was just dumped at the site both the Marin PD and the park rangers turned the case over to San Francisco. The man turned out to be Philip Gilbert a Holmes expert/fanatic whose home turned out to be a replica of 221 Baker Street. Gilbert was a collector of Holmes era items and was hoping to turn the place into a museum. As Kate investigates she finds that Gilbert has discovered a manuscript written in 1924 found in a San Francisco house being remodeled along with an old Underwood typewriter of the same era. Gilbert thinks it is a Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle written when he was visiting San Francisco in 1924. Kate wonder’s if this might be the reason Gilbert was murdered. In the middle of the story Kate takes time out to read the manuscript, and here is where I think the audio book format worked great, as Robert Ian Mackenzie read the manuscript. It felt like I was getting two mysteries in one book. As the book went along from this point Kate and I had to remember which was the real murder case. With a Sherlock Holmes mystery built into the story of course, King put in red herrings, and lots of Holmes trivia as Kate interviewed the Holmes society members that Gilbert belong to and also some of them were also 221 B members. At the end King brings both murders to a successful solution. I like this series because King provides such great descriptions of San Francisco and modern police procedure and the location helps make real some unusual stories and character in this series. Alyssa Bresnahan and Robert Ian Mackenzie do a great job narrating the story. I do hope that King will continue this series sometime in the future.
August 6, 2012
This one was pretty good, a bit better than the others. However, I wish the GoodReads scoring system was on a 1-10 basis so that I could more accurately rate it according to my taste.
I read the first three books in this series and skipped right to number 5, having jumped about twelve years in the characters' lives, during which time a lot of changes have been made - all in all, these changes were all a little "goody-two-shoes" (or is that goody-too-shoes?) for me.
Anyway, the gist of the story concerns the San Francisco murder of one of the world's leading experts on Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle. The murdered man goes so far as to live in a San Francisco mansion duplicating the living conditions of Holmesian London - on the first two floors. Even the electrical outlets have been removed and papered over.
The murdered man also seems to think (have thought) that he has discovered an original unpublished Sherlock Holmes story written while Conan-Doyle visited San Francisco. It was found in a boarded up attic along with an antique typewriter on which it appears to have been written.
Speculation as to why it was never realeased for publication concentrate on the murder of a (of course,) closeted gay Army officer who had been dating a transvestite performer.
The ENTIRE 100 page manuscript is reproduced broken only by a page or paragraph in the life of the detective reading it.
Then, the real life murder take on a great deal of parallels of the fictional one.
I liked this Kate Martinelli mystery better than the others. I believe that much of this is because of the inclusion of the 100 page Holmes story.
Ironically, the first ten Laurie R. King novels I read were the Mary Russell series, though I did like those more.
I read the first three books in this series and skipped right to number 5, having jumped about twelve years in the characters' lives, during which time a lot of changes have been made - all in all, these changes were all a little "goody-two-shoes" (or is that goody-too-shoes?) for me.
Anyway, the gist of the story concerns the San Francisco murder of one of the world's leading experts on Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle. The murdered man goes so far as to live in a San Francisco mansion duplicating the living conditions of Holmesian London - on the first two floors. Even the electrical outlets have been removed and papered over.
The murdered man also seems to think (have thought) that he has discovered an original unpublished Sherlock Holmes story written while Conan-Doyle visited San Francisco. It was found in a boarded up attic along with an antique typewriter on which it appears to have been written.
Speculation as to why it was never realeased for publication concentrate on the murder of a (of course,) closeted gay Army officer who had been dating a transvestite performer.
The ENTIRE 100 page manuscript is reproduced broken only by a page or paragraph in the life of the detective reading it.
Then, the real life murder take on a great deal of parallels of the fictional one.
I liked this Kate Martinelli mystery better than the others. I believe that much of this is because of the inclusion of the 100 page Holmes story.
Ironically, the first ten Laurie R. King novels I read were the Mary Russell series, though I did like those more.
September 20, 2009
This was the next Martinelli book for me after reading the debut novel, "A Grave Talent." I only jumped ahead because other books weren't available at the library.
It was bittersweet to fast-forward so far ahead that Kate and her police partner, Al, have gone from learning each other to knowing the other like the back of one's hand. Also, Kate has gone from attractive to self-described frumpy.
But it must have been really fun for author King to combine two of her threads: female San Fran detective + Holmes literature.
The deceased Mr. Gilbert -- whose murder has to be solved -- was indeed an interesting personality -- a modern gay who wants to remain closeted, even in contemporary hang-it-all-out San Francisco.
I love the way King explains the thought process of her detective -- this time, incorporating several false theories that have to be corrected (one casts false suspicion on the executor of Gilbert's will; the female suspect is another early suspect; also unclear for a large part of the book is the precise nature of Ian's connection with the new manuscript, and his personal tie to Gilbert himself.
Nice touch - that the Holmes-era story set in the Bay area is a gay-rights story for the '20s. But the book's ending w. the gay wedding celebration seemed a bit stereotypical.
I wonder if the relationship between Kate and Lee will deteriorate further in future books to the frequent cop scenario: troubled marriage resulting in divorce. Hope not.
It was bittersweet to fast-forward so far ahead that Kate and her police partner, Al, have gone from learning each other to knowing the other like the back of one's hand. Also, Kate has gone from attractive to self-described frumpy.
But it must have been really fun for author King to combine two of her threads: female San Fran detective + Holmes literature.
The deceased Mr. Gilbert -- whose murder has to be solved -- was indeed an interesting personality -- a modern gay who wants to remain closeted, even in contemporary hang-it-all-out San Francisco.
I love the way King explains the thought process of her detective -- this time, incorporating several false theories that have to be corrected (one casts false suspicion on the executor of Gilbert's will; the female suspect is another early suspect; also unclear for a large part of the book is the precise nature of Ian's connection with the new manuscript, and his personal tie to Gilbert himself.
Nice touch - that the Holmes-era story set in the Bay area is a gay-rights story for the '20s. But the book's ending w. the gay wedding celebration seemed a bit stereotypical.
I wonder if the relationship between Kate and Lee will deteriorate further in future books to the frequent cop scenario: troubled marriage resulting in divorce. Hope not.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 20, 2012
According to my list here I have not read a book by Laurie R. King since I started keeping track here. That is unforgivable. Not only is King one of my favorite authors, but her Kate Martinelli series is just so good. I suspect that the Mary Russell series is more beloved by most, but Martinelli's stories are just so well plotted and so riveting. They are my favorite of King's books.
The Art of Detection is no exception. I kept looking for reasons to get in my car so I would have more time with Kate and her case. King did not exactly tie her two series tightly together, but there is no way this book would have come about without the Mary Russell novels.
Martinelli, her work partner and her life partner, Lee, seem very real to me. I live in the stories while I listen to them. Listening to the books are part of the experience of this series for me. Alyssa Bresnahan is the voice of either King or Martinelli or maybe both in my mind.
Because this series is so real to me, I have to admit I cried through the last chapter of this book. The emotions the characters were experiencing were mine. I was so happy. Now I have to right the terrible wrongs I have done and read/listen to more Laurie R. King.
The Art of Detection is no exception. I kept looking for reasons to get in my car so I would have more time with Kate and her case. King did not exactly tie her two series tightly together, but there is no way this book would have come about without the Mary Russell novels.
Martinelli, her work partner and her life partner, Lee, seem very real to me. I live in the stories while I listen to them. Listening to the books are part of the experience of this series for me. Alyssa Bresnahan is the voice of either King or Martinelli or maybe both in my mind.
Because this series is so real to me, I have to admit I cried through the last chapter of this book. The emotions the characters were experiencing were mine. I was so happy. Now I have to right the terrible wrongs I have done and read/listen to more Laurie R. King.
September 2, 2013
Someone killed a man and put his body way up on the Marin headlands in an old gun emplacement. Said dead man was in his pajamas with clean feet. So who put him there?
As they investigate they find out he is a Sherlockian, one of the people who are invested in Sherlock Holmes; as a collector or in re-enactments, that sort of thing. He belongs to a group of these people and they seem to be his only friends although no one is really close to him.
But someone had motivation to kill him. Who was it?
There is also a story within a story in this book; a manuscript that may have been written by Arthur Conan Doyle (no, not really - just fiction in this book) and in that story a man is murdered and left in a gun emplacement on the Marin headlands. The story within a story is written in a different style than the main story, a nice bit of work by the author. I liked the story within a story better than the current police procedural part of the book. All things considered it was a reasonably good book.
As they investigate they find out he is a Sherlockian, one of the people who are invested in Sherlock Holmes; as a collector or in re-enactments, that sort of thing. He belongs to a group of these people and they seem to be his only friends although no one is really close to him.
But someone had motivation to kill him. Who was it?
There is also a story within a story in this book; a manuscript that may have been written by Arthur Conan Doyle (no, not really - just fiction in this book) and in that story a man is murdered and left in a gun emplacement on the Marin headlands. The story within a story is written in a different style than the main story, a nice bit of work by the author. I liked the story within a story better than the current police procedural part of the book. All things considered it was a reasonably good book.
April 12, 2014
I'm glad that's over. This was neither mystery nor crime fiction. The whodunnit was pretty much a vehicle(& a broken-down one at that)for the author's real story; the personal life & relationship of the protagonist, Kate Martinelli, a San Francisco homicide detective who happens to be a lesbian. First I've ever read of Laurie R King. Apparently, this particular book ties two of her best-selling series' together. Having read all AC Doyle's Holmes stories many times over the years, I was disappointed. I don't care about the character's sexual preference or anything else that is so totally irrelevant to the story line, the mystery. That goes for Detective Kate Martinelli as well as Detective Davenport in the PREY novels. Seems Laurie King has a Creasey & an Edgar so, I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt & read something else of hers down the road. I'm in no hurry, however.
So, now I'm looking forward to reading a real mystery by a different King (Stephen's JOYLAND).
I deserve it after this slog!
So, now I'm looking forward to reading a real mystery by a different King (Stephen's JOYLAND).
I deserve it after this slog!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 475 reviews