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The Moor (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, Bk 4)
The Moor - Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, Bk 4 Author:Laurie R. King Though theirs is a marriage of true equals, when Sherlock Holmes summons his wife and partner Mary Russell to the eerie scene of his most celebrated case, she abandons her Oxford studies to aid his investigation. But this time, on Dartmoor, there is more to the matter than a phantom hound. Sightings of a spectral coach carrying a long-dead noble... more »woman over the moonlit moor have heralded a mysterious death, the corpse surrounded by oversize paw prints.
Here on this wild and foreboding moor, Russell and Holmes embark on a quest with few clues save a fanatic anthropologist, an ancestral portrait, a moorland witch, and a lowly -- but most revealing -- hedgehog. As Holmes and Russell anticipate, a rational explanation lies beneath the supernatural events -- but one darker than they could have imagined. And one that could end their lives in this harsh and desolate land.« less
Russell and Holmes find themselves back on Dartmoor, location of his most famous adventure in the Hound of the Baskervilles. Another ghostly hound has been spotted on the moors, accompanying a ghostly carriage, and Holmes is investigating as a favor to his aged and dying friend the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould. This 4th volume of the series is a little on the tedious side as the reader goes through over half the book filled with pages of description of the wild, desolate haunting moors and its curious inhabitants. While fascinating, this slowed the action down a bit as if caught in one of the moors' many bogs, but once it picked up again we are treated to as exciting and satisfying a conclusion as Doyle has penned.
A big Sherlock Holmes fan, I've enjoyed this series very much and this one is especially good as much of it takes places on the moors of Dartmoor. Some supernatural events, which Holmes and Russell find rational explainations for. A great read.
King leaves few stops unpulled in this atmospheric tale. For those of us who love settings that qualify as characters, Dartmoor permeates every page of this fourth book in her marvelous series. The land, the weather, the abandoned mines, the remote farms, the legends and tales... King brings it all to life-- sometimes to creepy, hair-raising life.
Although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles is the quasi-foundation of this book, it's not necessary to have read it before picking up The Moor. If you have read it, you'll begin King's book with a shiver of anticipation for the spooky things that certainly lie ahead. And they do. I found the author's depiction of Dartmoor enough to give me goosebumps without the sightings of bony coaches and one-eyed hounds or the strange new inhabitants of Baskerville Hall.
As usual, King knows how to make us feel as though we've stepped right into England in 1924, and she certainly knows how to tell a story, but it's her characters who make the books truly memorable. Holmes is Holmes. You'd recognize him anywhere, and he's perfectly at home in the early twentieth century. Mary Russell is brilliant in her own way and incredibly strong-willed. If these two were horses, few people would ever dream of harnessing them together. Only the very wise would be able to see that it's the only pairing either of them would accept. One of the treats of reading this series is to watch these two individuals-- who spend a lot of their time apart-- gradually learn that they can become a couple without sacrificing the parts of themselves that they hold most dear.
Even though I found that I could deduce most of the mystery this time around (I'm still not sure why), The Moor was a delight to read. Atmosphere, setting, time period, Sherlock Holmes, and one woman strong enough to stand side by side with the world's greatest detective. Get comfortable and immerse yourself in this tale.
Susan L. (Suzieleigh) reviewed The Moor (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, Bk 4) on
In the eerie wasteland of Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes summons his devoted wife and partner, Mary Russell, from her studies at Oxford to aid the investigation of a death and some disturbing phenomena of a decidedly supernatural origin. Through the mists of the moor there have been sightings of a spectral coach made of bones carrying a woman long-ago accused of murdering her husband--and of a hound with a single glowing eye. Returning to the scene of one of his most celebrated cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes and Russell investigate a mystery darker and more unforgiving than the moors themselves.
This is an exciting book in that it is a marriage of two equals in the intellectual relm. It is intesting to see how Holmes handled being married. It is quite unconventional. Any lover of Sherlock Holmes must read this book!
Anna S. (annapi) reviewed The Moor (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, Bk 4) on + 334 more book reviews 
