Play Book Tag discussion

Mary Russell has largely recovered from the events of her first investigation with Sherlock Holmes and is about to come into her inheritance upon reaching the age of twenty-one. Her relationship with Holmes seems to have changed somewhat and she is confused and out of sorts. Through a friend from Oxford, Mary comes into contact with Margery Childe, the charismatic leader of The Temple. This semi-religious group allows women who have been left at a loose end after the war to involve themselves in helping others, particularly other women. However, there have been a number of suspicious deaths associated with The Temple and, after Mary's friend is attacked, Mary and Holmes become engaged in the investigation.

I did enjoy this. The style of writing is still very close to what you'd expect for Sherlock Holmes and the in-joke concerning Arthur Conan Doyle is funny. I marked it down largely because of the chapter headings. Each chapter starts with a quote from a male writer such as Shakespeare or from the bible and they all comment on the general inferiority of women in some way. I understand the point of it, as one of the themes of the book is feminism as it was at the time, but I'm afraid I just got more and more annoyed with them as the book went on. If you can ignore them then I think the overall book would be better.

I liked those chapter headings. If memory serves, they changed toward a more feminist attitude as the book progressed. But, much further on in the series, the plot involves a trip to Japan. King created Haiku for the start of each chapter. They were terrible!