The last book I had my wonderful local library hold for me before leaving town was Locked Rooms, the latest Mary Russell book by Laurie R. King. I found it a very annoying book, although there were some exciting bits, and the last third or so really flew by. Mostly, I was annoyed because Ms. King has decided that she likes to write psychological thrillers, and I don’t particularly like psychological thrillers. This book has Ms. Russell undergoing something of a nervous breakdown, and the fun (I assume) is in watching the pressure of the situation on her fragile psyche. Mostly, I felt like I was wading through a lot of nonsense to get from plot point to plot point. And, of course, as Ms. Russell was not herself, she didn’t act like herself, and I like her when she is herself and acts like herself. In a way, this is a Mary Russell book without much Mary Russell, or without much of the Mary Russell who I have become so comfortable with. Further, since Ms. Russell is not herself, Mr. Holmes is not himself, and that’s too bad, too.
The other thing that annoyed me was the portrayal of Dashiell Hammett, who is one of my favorite authors. Ms. King did a terrific job of inventing a Sherlock Holmes who is not too much like the Holmes that appears in Arthur Conan Doyle’s works, but then explaining that those stories are not much like the “real” Sherlock Holmes, and who would expect them to be? This works, in part, because there is no real Sherlock Holmes, and since the character is in the public domain, all Ms. King needs to do is make a more persuasive Holmes than the original, and the character is hers. And so it is. In the last book, she takes over Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and does a marvelous job of it, noting where Mr. Kipling’s story diverges from her own. Mr. Hammett, on the other hand, was an actual person, who wrote actual stories; her liberties with him grate because she is not just reinterpreting but misrepresenting. But then Mr. Hammett is one of my favorite authors, as I may have said, and am likely to be touchier than I should be on that topic. Perhaps if she had run into Sam Spade or the Continental Op, I would be more upset, rather than less. Oh well.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.