Recent Reading

In an effort to try to at least keep up the record, here are some things I've been reading lately:

• The Simeon Chamber, by Steve Martini - An early one, involving some California history, WWII, and the Hearst Castle.

• Time Bomb, by Jonathan Kellerman - these never fail.
  

• The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison - her first novel, and really excellent

• A Monstrous Regiment of Women, Laurie King - second in the series started by Beekeeper's Apprentice

• Fight Club, Chuck Pahlaniuk (read online, probably bootleg) -- Wow. Now I've started to read Survivor, another novel by Pahlaniuk.

• A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle - this is a surprisingly enjoyable book written by an English journalist who moved to Provence with his wife, their adventures establishing a home in this singular area of France. I suppose the book could also be entitled How Two Rich People Managed to Survive France, and it did recount an embarrassing number of drunken driving episodes, but I did enjoy it nonetheless.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie R. King

Picador Books, 1994. 346 pages. ISBN 978-0-312-42736-8

A wonderful novel in which we are introduced to young Mary Russell, a British orphan of some means, who meets Sherlock Holmes. Holmes has become a retired gentleman living in the country and keeping bees. Russell becomes, as one would guess, his apprentice.

This sort of thing could be done very badly. The Apprentice is done extremely well, and is an absolutely delightful read. There are more books in this series, this is the first, one wonders if they will be as good.

Holmes and Russell have several adventures together in this book, culminating in one enormously complicated effort to identify and capture a master criminal who attempts to kill Russell, Holmes, and Watson (yes, Dr. Watson lives, too) during the course of events.