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Zusatztext "A one-woman case for the defense of unauthorized literary sequels...intelligent, witty, complex and atmospheric...By making a woman possible who matches Holmes in brainpower, as well as in depressive tendencies of mind and spare elegance of manner, King has made marriage possible for the most famous and, surely, one of the most aloof detectives of all time....A spellbinding mystery...superb." — The Washington Post Book World on Justice Hall "A wonderful blend of sheer wit and canny ratiocination, this is mystery at its most ingenious."— The Guardian on The Art of Detection "Mesmerizing...King does a wonderful job of probing the human psyche...All of her novels are superb."— Daily American on Locked Rooms Informationen zum Autor Laurie R. King Klappentext NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "[Laurie R.] King enriches the Sherlockian legacy."-The Boston Globe For Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad was especially sweet. There was even a mystery to solve-the unexplained disappearance of an entire colony of bees from one of Holmes's beloved hives. But the anticipated sweetness of their homecoming is quickly tempered by a galling memory from the past. Mary had met Damian Adler only once before, when the surrealist painter had been charged with-and exonerated from-murder. Now the troubled young man is enlisting the Holmeses' help again, this time in a desperate search for his missing wife and child. Mary has often observed that there are many kinds of madness, and before this case yields its shattering solution she'll come into dangerous contact with a fair number of them. From suicides at Stonehenge to the dark secrets of a young woman's past on the streets of Shanghai, Mary will find herself on the trail of a killer more dangerous than any she's ever faced-a killer Sherlock Holmes himself may be protecting for reasons near and dear to his heart. Leseprobe Chapter One First Birth (1): The boy came into being on a night of celestial alignment, when a comet travelled the firmament and the sky threw forth a million shooting stars to herald his arrival. Testimony, I:1 AS HOMECOMINGS GO, IT WAS NOT AUSPICIOUS. The train was late. Portsmouth sweltered under a fitful breeze. Sherlock Holmes paced up and down, smoking one cigarette after another, his already bleak mood growing darker by the minute. I sat, sinuses swollen with the dregs of a summer cold I’d picked up in New York, trying to ignore my partner’s mood and my own headache. Patrick, my farm manager, had come to meet the ship with the post, the day’s newspapers, and a beaming face; in no time at all the smile was gone, the letters and papers hastily thrust into my hands, and he had vanished to, he claimed, see what the delay was about. Welcome home. Just as it seemed Holmes was about to fling his coat to the side and set off for home on foot, whistles blew, doors clattered, and the train roused itself from torpor. We boarded, flinging our compartment’s windows as far open as they would go. Patrick cast a wary glance at Holmes and claimed an acquaintance in the third- class carriage. We removed as many of our outer garments as propriety would allow, and I tore away the first pages of the newspaper to construct a fan, cooling myself with the announcements and the agony column. Holmes slumped into the seat and reached for his cigarette case yet again. I recognised the symptoms, although I was puzzled as to the cause. Granted, an uneventful week in New York followed by long days at sea–none of our fellow passengers having been thoughtful enough to bleed to death in the captain’s cabin, drop down dead of a mysterious poison, or vanish over the rails–might cause a man like Holmes to chafe at inactivity, non...
