- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (Mar 2 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0553801945
- ISBN-13: 978-0553801941
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 16.5 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #873,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The seventh Mary Russell adventure (after 2002's Justice Hall) may well be the best King has yet devised for her strong-willed heroine. It's 1924, and Kimball O'Hara, the "Kim" of the famous Rudyard Kipling novel, has disappeared. Fearing some kind of geopolitical crisis in the making, Mycroft Holmes sends his brother and Mary to India to uncover what happened. En route, they encounter the insufferable Tom Goodheart—a wealthy young American who has embraced Communism—traveling with his mother and sister to visit his maharaja friend, Jumalpandra ("Jimmy"), an impossibly rich and charming ruler of the (fictional) Indian state of Khanpur. With some local intelligence supplied by Geoffrey Nesbit, an Englishman of the old school, and accompanied by Bindra, a resourceful orphan, the couple travel incognito as native magicians (Mary, it goes without saying, learns Hindi on the voyage out). Ultimately, their journey intersects with the paths of the Goodhearts and the mysterious Jimmy. At times, travelogue and cultural history trump plot, but the sights, smells and ideas of India make interesting, evocative reading (Mary's foray into the dangerous sport of pig-sticking is particularly fascinating). If for some Mary Russell is too perfect a character to be as enduringly compelling as Holmes, all readers will appreciate the grace and intelligence of King's writing in this exotic masala of a book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–Once apprentice, now investigator, Mary Russell travels to India in 1925 with her former mentor, now husband, Sherlock Holmes. In this seventh adventure, the duo is searching for Kimball O'Hara, the Kim of Rudyard Kipling's eponymous novel. On a mission from Sherlock's brother Mycroft, long involved in British espionage, they are tasked with finding Kim or evidence of his status as victim or traitor. Sailing to India on a luxury liner, they meet an American family with a debutante daughter, a social-climbing mother, and a left-leaning son, who of course reappear at a strategic moment. Upon their arrival, Mary and Sherlock disguise themselves as native traveling magicians and seek out an anti-English and very sadistic maharaja, "Jimmy." With her usual thorough research, King imbues the mystery with lots of historical detail and a real sense of time and place. This is one of the best in the series and can easily be read on its own, though readers will then want to go back and see how the strange, but surprisingly plausible, meeting and union between a young Mary and a considerably older Holmes actually occurs. Likewise, a previous reading of Kim is unnecessary, but teens will likely be intrigued enough to go on to read that as well. A sure bet for mystery lovers and historical fiction fans.–Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, Chantilly, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
Travel broadens, they say. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Game,
By Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Game (Hardcover)
As is often the case, Mycroft Holmes, who is ill and abed, turns to his detective brother to do what the entire British Secret Service cannot, track down Kimball O'Hara, who has disappeared into India. Of course, Kimball, who is the original for Rudyard Kipling's Kim, has always been disappeared into India. He has been a British agent, worked for the betterment of his adopted country of India, and been something of a mystic. He is often missing, but this time Mycroft is convinced that there has been foul play.Holmes is selected because he spent time in India during his own great disappearance, has met O'Hara, and, I suspect, because his wife is Mary Russell. Mary is every bit Holmes equal, and in some ways his better. First as a team, and then separately, they adventure to Northern India and the Principality of Khanpur, where they must face corruption, insanity, and sedition in an adventure that becomes quite a bit more than a rescue mission. King does her usual best to mix plenty of fact into her fiction, so that 'The Game' becomes a travelogue and a sociological record in addition to an adventure. There is less deduction in this novel than in some of her other Russell/Holmes stories. Due mostly to the fact that the clues always lead in one direction and the real excitement becomes the tricks, feats, and disguises that enable the team to survive and conquer. King also excels at developing a supporting cast, and as one might expect from a book set in India, that cast is almost numberless. My only real criticism is that the story is very slow paced. Indeed, it is timed more like a travel diary than an adventure novel. I'm comfortable with an author that lavishes a wealth of detail on an interesting story, but for those that prefer a brisker pace this may be a bit off-putting. Kings ability to capture both the culture of the Asian subcontinent and the artificiality of the British presence, right at the time when India was in a crisis between the desire for independence, the influence of the Raj, and the menace of a Russia looking hungrily over the Himalayas.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Worthy Addition to the Mary Russell Series,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Game (Hardcover)
The Game offers a new setting (India) with the typical well researched backdrop and fun, interesting new characters that characterize Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series. Very satisyfing. The entire series is well written and engaging.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Richly detailed but lopsided,
By
This review is from: The Game (Hardcover)
This is an improvement over the previous "Justice Hall," but it's still a disappointment compared to the first couple of King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes stories. It almost reads like two different authors wrote the first 80% and final 20% of the book respectively. The front 80% groans under the weight of enervatingly lavish, detailed descriptions of places, events, and politics in India: nothing much happens, and we get introduced to some amusing characters whom you know Will Assume Unexpected Importance Later. This part of the book is impressive in terms of the research that must have gone into it, but for those who like *mysteries*, it's a long slog, very much like "Justice Hall." In the second part of the book, after Russell and Holmes meet up again in the context of the Maharajah's castle, plot details get neatly resolved with the same handiness and speediness with which the action suddenly moves along. Too many coincidences here, and too many telling details from earlier in the book unresolved. Do we suspect a rush job on the ending to meet a publication schedule?
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