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1924. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes gets a New Year’s visit from Mycroft Holmes with a strange package from an English spy called Kimball O’Hara, more known as the Kim Kipling wrote about. He has withdrawn from the “Great Game” of espionage and disappeared. So Russell and Homes travels to India to search for the missing Kim.

I like this book very much, a missing spy, India and Mary Russell that has to disguise herself to save Sherlock Holmes. It's a wonderful entertaining and engrossing book.
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I finished this yesterday, but everyone and every thing conspired against me this weekend and I was unable to update/post except in 15 seconds bursts. My apologies to Moonlight Reader for letting down the side a bit.

Talk about conflicted about a read. I both loved and hated almost every page.

As is typical of all the Mary Russell books (so far), Ms. King is not in a hurry to set the scene and the story. Almost the entire first half is setting up the events to come and until Holmes' and Russell's arrival in India the reading is rather drab, although not completely dull. Once we're in India though, the writing is so rich and illustrative and alive it's hard not to feel you're there with them, simultaneously fascinated and wishing to be somewhere...cleaner.

When we arrived (and it was, to me, "we" - as I said, the writing really comes alive off the page) at the maharajah's palace, the extraordinary excesses and luxury hide at first the rot underneath. Truly the rajah is the poster child for "idle hands are the devil's workshop". The level of detail the author includes when describing the rajah's "toy room" must have required an astounding amount of research into both esoteric and prurient bits of history; I can't even talk about the gun-room: it made my skin crawl.

Overall, the writing and the story are outstanding, so why was I conflicted? My personal trigger is anything involving animal cruelty and this was a prevailing thread running through the rajah's psychology. I hated every freaking word and had this not been a buddy read, I probably would have stopped. I would have missed an outstanding read, but I wouldn't have continued.

But I did and I was in for a rousing, adventure filled, fantastic ending with a very satisfying closing chapter. The author packs in so much in so few words, I was almost exhausted myself by the end.

So, an outstanding book I'll likely never, ever read again - but if you don't share my triggers, I can't sing the praises of this book's writing highly enough.

(Note: this is only the second Russell book I've actually read, as opposed to listened to. I suspect I both gain and lose something in listening vs. reading.) ( )

Very hard to like this when the Maharaja is so unlikeable and the animal cruelty awful. ( )

A birthday dinner with Mycroft on Mary's twenty-fourth birthday in January, 1924, sends Holmes and Russell to India to search for Kimball O'Hara who hasn't been seen for three years. Tensions are rising in India. The nationalist uprising under Ghandi is gaining momentum and the rivalry between Russia and the British is also fierce. The change from a Tsar to the Bolsheviks didn't really change the desire to gain control of India. Neither did the newly elected Socialist Party change Britain's.

The story begins with the ocean voyage to India where Mary undergoes a crash course in Hindustani and immersion in the Mahabharata to gain an understanding of the culture. She also meets Sunny Goodheart, her mother who is inspired by an Indian Teacher, and her brother who is a budding Communist. Repeated run-ins with the Goodhearts raise suspicions in both Mary and Sherlock. The suspicions reach their peak when the Goodhearts are found to be visitors to the Maharajah of Khanpur. The Maharajah is supposed to be a staunch ally of Britain but there are some questions since his country is near where O'Hara was last seen.

Holmes and Russell begin their investigation by taking on the personas of traveling magicians. They gather a young donkey boy named Bindra along with his donkey and cart and begin to make their way across India. I loved the descriptions of the land and people as seen through Mary's eyes.

Mary becomes herself again when she meets the Goodhearts and has a chance to enter Khanpur as their guest. However, Holmes and Bindra are keeping their personas and will meet her later in Khanpur. Mary gets a chance to get to know the Maharajah and finds him to be a volatile personality with a secret political agenda. He seems fascinated by Mary especially after she joined him on a hunt for feral hogs and did well. When she wants to leave, he tries to keep her there. Fortunately, she managed to resume her identity as a traveling magician and slip away from him for a while leaving him in a rage.

She and Sherlock are traveling to get out of Khanpur when the Maharajah catches up to them. He captures Sherlock but Mary is able to make her escape out of Khanpur and to a trusted British agent. Then the two of them need to find a way back in to confirm suspicions about the Maharajah's goals and, more importantly to Mary, to rescue Holmes.

This story was filled with adventure and danger and political intrigue. I loved the mystery and Mary's world. I enjoyed the ties to Rudyard Kipling's KIM and the look at India through Mary's eyes. ( )

.... and an extra half a star. A good romp and a comfortable 'Kim' tribute. ( )

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes have returned home to Sussex in order to enjoy the new year, but soon enough they travel to London to visit Holmes’ brother, Mycroft, whose health is not the best. While there he suggests that perhaps they might look into a case for him. A possibly-missing person. In India.

Of course they head off, and the person they are looking for, none other than Kimball O’Hara, known to many from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim.
Full review: http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2010/03/28/the-game/ ( )

For the most part I really like King's writing and I think she has been faithful to Sherlock Holmes in her stories. The idea of Mary Russell as wife and partner is intriguing and I find the Russell/Holmes story lines to be well written and well crafted. But this one just didn't appeal to me for some reason and I really can't put my finger on it. It was okay, but is by no means my favoriet of her books I admit that this may be entirely my personal preference and nothing to do with the actual story, etc. her characters were good as usual but I just couldn't get into it. ( )

The Game - L.R.King
Audio performance by Jenny Sterling
4 stars

This may be my least favorite book of the series. Russel and Holmes travel to British India following the cold trail of a missing English agent, Kimball O’Hara. The first time that I read it, I couldn’t remember enough of the details of Kipling’s Kim to appreciate the way Laurie King morphed Kipling’s young character with Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. It works, mostly. This is the second time that I’ve read this one, following a more recent reading of the original Kipling story. I do think the adult Kim is well imagined. Still not my favorite book in the series. ( )

On the one hand, the plot is entertaining and the story is well-written. On the other hand, the Evil and Corrupt Colonized Indian vs. the Essentially Good and Well-Meaning British Colonizers is a tired racist trope. ( )

A little simple and a little flat, plot and believability-wise. The main 'character conflict' was the threat of Kim running rogue from British Intelligence, and the enemies of British Intelligence were simply not given enough air time or realism to make the threat of his defection convincing. If Kim were really going to abandon the British cause for that of India, there would have been a lot more information about Indian politics beyond a few gratuitous mentions of Gandhi. I also felt that the hair-cutting episode of Russell's was really clumsily telegraphed. I may be over-sensitive, but when Holmes the nondemonstrative and Russell the close-mouthed and private writer start conspiring to give us little episodes of Holmes stroking Russell's hair, well... they stand out in a terribly awkward way as deeply uncharacteristic inclusions into the narrative, and when we got to the haircut, all I could do was roll my eyes. It could have been so thrilling if we had gotten anything like, say, the Husband-Wife interactions of even Justice Hall, but there was such a rush Holmes had barely enough time to toss off a quip.

I'm not even going to mention Bindra. Please, O Author. Less Cute Local Color Sidekick with Mysterious Ties to the Plot and more PLOT. My own personal thought, perhaps based on a superficial reading of the book, was that had the maharaja not been dangerously violent and insane, his plan to lure the Russians into his territory and then close them off for the Brits to massacre was a GOOD plan, for the British, and it's bloody unlikely even in those days that the law would have acted so quickly. Why not sensibly wait until the plot to help Britain has been accomplished and then catch the man being nutters? While I don't deny that I'm jaded when it comes to today's politicians, the mahajara's end plot seemed a terribly flimsy premise to hang a novel on. And why does he keep Kim? Because Kim is Kim. And what does he do with Kim? Oh, nothing much, just keeps him in a cell.

The novel needed about 200 more pages of plot and plausibility. I know King loves to set up lovingly detailed, vibrantly described, thoroughly researched set pieces of the places Russell and Holmes visit, but I could have sacrificed some of that in this particular novel. I was disappointed. And Mycroft's illness? Barely mentioned. Not even necessary for the plot. I wanted more character development, as per the other Russell novels, and less gratuitous lesbian couples et. al. I may not buy this one, and I own all the others.

It felt sometimes like Russell's authorial voice was so dense it was getting in the way of my seeing what was really happening- like she was so focused on her own thoughts that I couldn't see, say, Holmes' real expression at her hair or Mycroft's actual state of health. The believability was just slipping. I hope this all means King is setting us up for a real killer of a next book, in which Mycroft's health matters and Holmes gets to do more than 'not react' to whatever wild stunt Russell has set up next.

I would now like to note a few common features to ALL the Russell books:

A) Russell will, at some point, be required to Prove She is Not Just a Gurl by performing some astonishing and unexpected violent action against the Male Who Questions Her Fitness, usually involving throwing a knife which strategically grazes the man's hair/beard/moustache/whatever. Russell is now 24, and while I found this behavior acceptable in, say, O Jerusalem, when she is young and in an unfamiliar, highly tense situation where a lot is hanging on her abilty to successfully impersonate a man and protect her companions, now it just seems immature. I know a long discussion of feminism would be a bit dull in the middle of the action, but there must be a better way. "Smart enough to know when only violence is the answer" charms the first few times (okay, so it always charms when Holmes does it, but Holmes just charms) but it begins, now, to pall.

B) No matter where she is, Russell will acquire Perfectly Tailored clothing perfectly suited to her needs, always including at least one evening dress which is unsual/striking enough to arouse comment in other female onlookers. I wish I had Russell's ability to conjure couture from thin air. I admit I enjoy this feature, as I love clothing and can deal with it being lovingly described for pages, but it does begin to strike me as silly when she ends up with a perfect set of outfits AND fitting shoes in the middle of India, secret intelligence agency connections or no.

C) There was a C. At one point, there was a C. I no longer remember it.

I do have a question RE: Sexuality in King's Russell novels. It seems to me that Mary Russell is with increasing frequency being drawn into situations where she is in close contact with a powerful man of remarkable physical features to whom she is attracted, or at least whose attractiveness she mentions frequently enough that one could easily assume she is attracted to him. In The Game, especially, Russell at one point towards the end specifically mentions that she looked into (Intelligence Head Guy- I forget his name's) "beautiful" face and thought only of her husband. This seems, after many mentions of the man's intelligence, to be almost a victory for Russell over a sort of temptation, or at least a subconscious attempt to reassure herself that she is, in fact, able to overcome the charms of men. Could she be tempted towards dalliance despite her almost aggressively stated "sex and sexual attraction are minor points" stance of Monstrous Regiment (which is quite similar to Holmes' own)?

She is married to a much older man. Holmes' own reactions to other men who show their interest in Russell, even when she is in the guise of a single woman, therefore removing any moral or ethical mark from the mens' characters, are strongly negative and almost violent- uncharacteristically so, I should say, if the man is confident of his wife. Russell also often comments on Holmes' reticence and undemonstrativeness, generally when he is in fact being demonstrative- perhaps there is some kind of tension there, she feels neglected at times, or he fears she does? Their blissful home-scenes belie this sort of reading- the marriage seems stablest when she and Holmes are home together being domestic, or both working on separate projects in the same house- but perhaps that's the point- investigations put quite a strain on the marriage relationship. However, if they are both under so great an amount of strain, it isn't being conveyed well in the latest novel, to the point that Russell's incredible anxiety about leaving Holmes in the hands of his captors, a throwback to events in O Jerusalem, seems inappropriately emotional for the moment. I just wonder about Russell's instances of attraction to other men and her frequent mentions of this attraction. What is the author trying to convey here, if anything? ( )

A birthday dinner with Mycroft on Mary's twenty-fourth birthday in January, 1924, sends Holmes and Russell to India to search for Kimball O'Hara who hasn't been seen for three years. Tensions are rising in India. The nationalist uprising under Ghandi is gaining momentum and the rivalry between Russia and the British is also fierce. The change from a Tsar to the Bolsheviks didn't really change the desire to gain control of India. Neither did the newly elected Socialist Party change Britain's.

The story begins with the ocean voyage to India where Mary undergoes a crash course in Hindustani and immersion in the Mahabharata to gain an understanding of the culture. She also meets Sunny Goodheart, her mother who is inspired by an Indian Teacher, and her brother who is a budding Communist. Repeated run-ins with the Goodhearts raise suspicions in both Mary and Sherlock. The suspicions reach their peak when the Goodhearts are found to be visitors to the Maharajah of Khanpur. The Maharajah is supposed to be a staunch ally of Britain but there are some questions since his country is near where O'Hara was last seen.

Holmes and Russell begin their investigation by taking on the personas of traveling magicians. They gather a young donkey boy named Bindra along with his donkey and cart and begin to make their way across India. I loved the descriptions of the land and people as seen through Mary's eyes.

Mary becomes herself again when she meets the Goodhearts and has a chance to enter Khanpur as their guest. However, Holmes and Bindra are keeping their personas and will meet her later in Khanpur. Mary gets a chance to get to know the Maharajah and finds him to be a volatile personality with a secret political agenda. He seems fascinated by Mary especially after she joined him on a hunt for feral hogs and did well. When she wants to leave, he tries to keep her there. Fortunately, she managed to resume her identity as a traveling magician and slip away from him for a while leaving him in a rage.

She and Sherlock are traveling to get out of Khanpur when the Maharajah catches up to them. He captures Sherlock but Mary is able to make her escape out of Khanpur and to a trusted British agent. Then the two of them need to find a way back in to confirm suspicions about the Maharajah's goals and, more importantly to Mary, to rescue Holmes.

This story was filled with adventure and danger and political intrigue. I loved the mystery and Mary's world. I enjoyed the ties to Rudyard Kipling's KIM and the look at India through Mary's eyes. ( )

In the last installment of the Mary Russell series, King included real life character, Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (who dies early in The Game). This time King takes a well-known character from a fictional story and gives him a larger than life persona. From Rudyard Kipling's Kim Kimball O'Hara comes alive as a player in the Great Game of espionage in India as a spy for the Crown. After three years of being missing Holmes's brother Mycroft announces it is up to Holmes and Russell to find him. What follows is a wild adventure through India. Holmes goes undercover as a magician while Mary bends the roles of gender...all for the sake of the Game.
One of the best elements of The Game is Mary's connection to Holmes. Her keen sense of observation coupled with her intimate familiarity with his personality extends to his habits so that she is able to discern mood and energy levels. Never is this more apparent than in The Game.
Another added bonus of The Game is the education on India's extensive caste system and colorful history. ( )

My journey to find a good British mystery series has led me to the stories of Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, his student and wife, by Laurie R. King. I will not hide the fact that I was extremely sceptical at first. I mean, Sherlock having a wife other than The Woman a.k.a. Irene Adler? Preposterous! How could that have happened? I am not the most open-minded person when it comes to retellings of any kind. Especially when we're talking about Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, I adore the BBC Sherlock, but it took me two seasons to be convinced. Dont't start me on Elementary though, because the rant button will be triggered to no end. So, taking all these prejudices of mine into consideration, I took my time and read as many reviews as I could about the series. Just to be on the safe side...

I had a great difficulty in finding the previous installments, so I started with the only one that was available at the time, The Game. I enjoyed it very much, plain and simple. I will not bore you with plot details. However, I must stress that the setting of the story - India during the turbulent period of the 1920's- was a major plus. It made for an exotic read. The descriptions were vivid and rich. In fact, they were so detailed that they ended up becoming seriously tedious after a point, especially when I wanted the story to move forward. I don't need to know every single detail of decoration or dresses or plants. This was a major fault, in my opinion. A fault that continued all through the book. It was too wordy, too descriptive, and even the dialogue itself was tiring at times, although faithful to the era depicted.

Mary Russell is a very interesting character. She is clever and kind, but not obnoxious, and patient enough to deal with her genius of a husband. She is a worthy companion to Sherlock who - I am glad to say- retains his familiar characteristics. Laurie R. King created a version of Sherlock Holmes that the lifelong reader of Arthur Conan Doyle can connect with. She didn't try to make Mary appear ''smarter'' than him, nor did she make a dogmatic, all-knowing Holmes. She created a worthy couple, equal in intelligence and respect, and that was refreshing. The mystery itself was innovative, although a bit predictable, blending Kipling's Kim in the narration, and finding an equal balance between a world full of superstitions and concepts written in stone and the people who desire their freedom.

The Mary Russell series is nothing earth-shuttering or Booker Prize-worthy, but it is a quality light read with two superb characters. Thankfully, I've found the other books since I bought this one, and I intend to follow the couple's adventures.

P.S. Hey, Elementary ''writers'', pay attention! This is how you create a female companion without making Sherlock appear an idiot! ( )

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are relaxing from their adventures in Palestine when Mycroft asks them to investigate the disappearance of Kimberly O'Mara--yes, that Kimberly O'Mara, the Kim chronicled by Kipling. They are diverted from that task by the need to investigate possible anti-Empire plans by a Maharajah in a border state. Holmes and Russell move from one disguise and social situation to another, sometimes together, sometimes separately.

It's the start of 1924, Mycroft Holmes, invites Sherlock and his wife, Mary Russell, to come to London. The government has recently gone through some changes, and it wants to investigate the disappearance of Kimball O’Mara. When last heard from, Kimball had been in India, where some British agents have been murdered and there is a concern about the rising influence of the Communists. Mycroft asks Shelock and Mary to travel to India to learn what they can about what's happening there and also try to find Kimball.

This book is an adventure with a little bit of history thrown in for context, which makes it an entertaining read. The author has a way of writing characters that are accurate to the time period that she is writing about instead of forcing them to be more modern. ( )

It's the start of 1924, Mycroft Holmes, invites Sherlock and his wife, Mary Russell, to come to London. The government has recently gone through some changes, and it wants to investigate the disappearance of Kimball O’Mara. When last heard from, Kimball had been in India, where some British agents have been murdered and there is a concern about the rising influence of the Communists. Mycroft asks Shelock and Mary to travel to India to learn what they can about what's happening there and also try to find Kimball.

This book is an adventure with a little bit of history thrown in for context, which makes it an entertaining read. The author has a way of writing characters that are accurate to the time period that she is writing about instead of forcing them to be more modern. ( )

enough with this series......... ( )

I really love the way Miss King reates a setting, within a timeframe long gone. Her use of language long forgotten or the manners with which one used in company- simply wonderful. As you read one can tell the care she takes with her deatls and it is well worth it.

The Game allows our female heroine to explore on her own for a bit without her husband. She as a character gets to grow and we see her observations not through her husband's interpretations, but of hers alone. A well written tome, with interesting personages thrown in the mix. All in all, it was a fun jaunt through India (well for me at least, some characters fared much better than others). ( )

I am not complaining about this book, as Laurie R. King has managed to realistically draw a fictional picture of 'The Game' in India. What is the Game? This expression is used in the Mary Russell books as a metaphor for spying. Like a John Le Carré novel featuring George Smiley, there is a jargon to be followed, but not quite to his extent. Here we follow the Holmeses to India, where social unrest and internal wars are rife. The mad maharadja's background and psychological blackmail is well rendered, using the guests as virtual prisoners to heighten narrative tension. However, using Kim (fictional character) as the mysterious character who needs rescuing is a bit too much - it could have been someone else with a much more clear importance to justify rescuing. The reason for rescuing him were, if anything, fuzzy and this messed up his characterisation. The latter was nearly a caricature, turning Kim from a very clever (gone native) spy into a silly born-again buddhist convert. This character seemed too far-fetched in an otherwise flawless adventure. Nonetheless, this is a good book in the Holmeses adventures. This book is good to read, if only to be taken with a pinch of salt in places. ( )

It was January 1, 1924, when Mycroft Holmes, recovering from an illness, called his brother Sherlock and his wife, Mary Russell, to London. The government had recently changed and it wanted to investigate the disappearance of Kimball O’Mara, (famous as the title character in Rudyard Kipling’s book KIM. When last heard of, he had been in India. Some British agents had been eliminated and there was also concern about the rising influence of the Communists. Mycroft asked Shelock and Mary to travel to India to learn what they could.
Mary is the narrator of the story and describes not only of the characters, scenery, and buildings but also of the food and clothing. In some cases, she contrasts it with what they had seen on previous adventures. For example: “It was...both like our wandering time in Palestine and yet very different. Most of the difference lay in the population density.”
THE GAME refers not only to the intelligence community but also to the role of sporting events, particularly between the British and the Indians. Among the people they meet are a family from the United States and a Maharaja in India, with whom she spent several days in his magnificent home. Among the activities he offered to his guests was pig sticking. When one member of the American trio suggested having a world cup for pig sticking, the maharaja replied, “The British do not need to train for sticking pig. They simply arrange the rules to their satisfaction.”
Laurie King has excellent command of language and presents wonderful oral visions descriptions: “My sacrifice was to be the climax of the evening’s events, and he had worked the crowd into a near frenzy, playing on their rustic gullibility as on a fine instrument.”
The book is adventure with some history thrown in to put it into context. As always, Laurie King’s writing is very detailed though, at times, seemed to drag. It is, however, an excellent addition to the series. ( )

I really like Conan Doyle. I really like Kipling. So, when King writes a novel where a Conan Doyle character goes looking for a Kipling character...

I'm really loving the Mary Russell series. My favorite is still probably O Jerusalem but this one was a lot of fun, too.

I'm listening to these as audio books when I walk and Jenny Sterlin does a bang up job on them. ( )

This is absolutely my most favorite Holmes series ever! Every book in the series is fantastic-5 star! If you like Sherlock Holmes, you have to read this pastiche. It's the best one I've read yet. ( )

1924. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes gets a New Year’s visit from Mycroft Holmes with a strange package from an English spy called Kimball O’Hara, more known as the Kim Kipling wrote about. He has withdrawn from the “Great Game” of espionage and disappeared. So Russell and Homes travels to India to search for the missing Kim.

I like this book very much, a missing spy, India and Mary Russell that has to disguise herself to save Sherlock Holmes. It's a wonderful entertaining and engrossing book.
( )

Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are asked by his ailing brother Mycroft to travel to india to track down the missing Kimball O'Hara. It turns out Kim isn't just a character from a Kipling novel. he's a real person who has been working as a spy for Britain in the Great Game.While travelling to India by steamer Mary and Holmes com in conctact with the Goodheart family whose son may also be a Russian spy. Upon their arrival in India Nesbit, the local government official asks Holmes to travel to Khanpur to determine if the raja there is plotting against the British.
This book was a lot better than the last one I read in the series. Much more action and a more gripping plot. Lots of details about India in the 1920's, some mention of Ghandhi included. there was also a lot of interesting information about the socialist government coming into power in Britain, something I knew nothing about.
I also learned a lot obout the "sport" of pig sticking. Sounds pretty violent and brutal to me. I hope this isn't something that is still practiced in India. There are a lot of good charcters in the book that I hope turn up again later in the series. The book also starts with a great opening line. "It was a dramatic setting for a human sacrifice, give my murderer credit." I skipped two book between The Moor and this one since this one fit the game but I'll definitely go back and read the ones I missed. I reccomend this series to mystery fans with the exception of the dreadfully boring The Moor. ( )

Another Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes story, the 7th in the series. This one is set in India as Mary and Sherlock search for a missing British citizen (spy?), Kimball O'Hara, who was the inspiration for Rudyard Kipling's Kim. Enjoyable! ( )