Customer Reviews

Pirate King: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

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Have read all of Laurie King's Mary Russell novels before this one and loved them. This felt like 200 pages of stalling and rambling, followed by a Mary Russell short story..and not a particularly exciting one. Finished the book with effort and more than a little confused about some plot points. Was wary before reading the book as had seen some bad reviews, so for the next novel I'll probably believe them if it happens again.

Mary Russell goes off at Sherlock's encouragement to help figure out what's going on with a small English filmmaker who seems to be mixed up in drug- and gun-running. The film troupe is led by an English aristocratic idiot who simply must film on a real pirate ship with pirates, in Morocco. Lisbon becomes their first port-of-call, and in addition to meeting several intriguing characters we get a tour of an ancient city and the countryside. Then it's off to Morocco in a leaky boat, with a crew of real pirates and silly actresses, followed by imprisonment in a harem. Holmes has by now entered the act, and we get a few really good scenes with the unlikely husband & wife of Sherlock and Mary. And of course there is derring-do with knives and furniture good enough for an old Errol Flynn movie. Several old movies are brought into the storyline, and references to "The Sheik" abound. We've forgotten how much of an impact that film made on people. And in light of current attitudes towards Arabs, the book makes you think a bit about how our attitudes and beliefs are shaped by our media. Some reviews aren't so positive but I enjoyed this story. Mary is observant and a bit cynical, Holmes is canny and brave (and in love, how nice. And the various new characters introduced may make future entries in this series very interesting. The storyline that is set up to start all of the action isn't particularly exciting or important, but the mystery (what there is of it) is solved and all is well by the end of the last chapter.