The Beekeeper's Apprentice

This was compelling enough that I let the kids stay up late so I could read the end, but lacking enough that I was ultimately a bit disappointed.

Anyone who likes Holmes and doesn't mind some tinkering with him should check it out. I think the main character is a little too much a Mary Sue, and could have used a few more realistic flaws in place of her Tragic Backstory, but just when I would think, “Mary is just too insufferable,” the author would make her look a bit foolish or awkward, and she'd become more sympathetic.

I had figured out the basics of whodunnit pretty early, and I'm not a great hand at that sort of thing, but the ride was pretty absorbing regardless. I appreciate the dual challenge of writing Holmes anew, while creating a character who's his match without being off-putting. In the end, I think Conan Doyle made the right choice to narrate through the approachable Watson, but Mary is fun in her own way too.

Sherlock Holmes, in retirement, meets a misfit teenage girl, Mary Russell, and takes her on as an apprentice. Before long they have cases to solve and things get complicated. I was skeptical about this, but I actually liked it. Mary is as much of an over the top character as Holmes in her own way, and I read the book as a kind of commentary on the original. The apprenticeship of Mary involves plenty of explanation of methods and convoluted exercises in detection (my favorite: Mary comes to visit Holmes at his cottage and finds a note that says “Find me. –SH”) I didn't like the book's dismissive attitude toward Dr. Watson and I thought Mycroft was portrayed as overly hospitable. The author has a disclaimer at the beginning saying that this is not Conan Doyle's Holmes, but I'd say he has enough in common with the original Holmes to make this a pretty satisfying entertainment.

I won't lie, it took my wife suggesting this a few times for me to finally decide to pick it up. I found the beginning, the genesis of the relationship with Russel and Holmes interesting. However, the middle really bogged down for me. I just didn't feel there was that much “sleuthing”, and that was what I came to the book for. It was interesting enough that I may read another in the series, but I wasn't running out to grab the next book.

I'd probably give it 3.5 stars if possible. It's an interesting read if you like that time period (19-teens) and all the banter is witty, but the danger (which is supposed to be a driving force of the book) never felt very immediate to me, maybe because of the narrator's style. Also, she really is quite mean to Watson! I understood her point, but at times it felt unnecessary.

My real issue with the book, though, was the relationship between Mary and Holmes. I'm completely fine with mentor relationships, and mentor-to-romantic relationships, and just romantic relationships in general. The problem was that the narrator said they had a mentor relationship, but then little details would point to romance instead and the conflict was never resolved. It felt like the author couldn't make up her mind, or maybe she really wanted a romance but had decided at the last minute not to write it that way. That indecision made me a bit uncomfortable. Not least because I worried the characters weren't on the same page!

Anyone with even a marginal interest in crime and mystery will have at least heard of Sherlock Holmes. There appears to be a slight increase in interest in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character, mostly thanks to the Guy Ritchie movie, and the BBC's recent contemporary-period adaptation of the Holmes stories, so more and more readers (younger ones, in particular) are finding their way towards Doyle's original material. Some are disappointed, finding Doyle's writing too dry and the Holmes in the original stories too impersonal. Others, drawn into the text in the same manner that Doyle's earliest fans were, may likely find themselves unable to stop reading at all.

But when they reach that last story, close the book (likely an anthology of Holmes-related stories), and put it aside, they - like many others before them - want to know more about what happened to Holmes. Surely a mind as brilliant and inquiring as his could not possibly be content with a life of beekeeping in the Sussex countryside? Surely the great detective could be drawn out of retirement, if the enticement were great enough?

Many books have attempted to answer that question, but The Beekeeper's Apprentice is different. Set in 1915, with the First World War raging in Europe, it includes a fifteen-year-old girl named Mary Russell, who, as it turns out, has the same mental powers as Holmes himself. They meet while Mary is taking a walk through the Sussex Downs, her nose in a book, and stumbles (literally) upon the great detective himself. A “friendly” exchange regarding bees ensues, and that exchange lays the foundation for Mary's apprenticeship to Holmes, from whom she learns all the methods and techniques for which Holmes was so renowned.

In that simple premise alone - a teenage girl with the same mental prowess as Holmes, being apprenticed to the master himself and eventually being regarded as his equal - is a world of discomfort for many Holmes fans, especially when they encounter King's version of Doyle's most famous character. This is nothing like the Holmes in Doyle's stories: he is capable of emotion (though he does not like showing them), and is capable of making fatal errors (though he does not enjoy making them). King's Holmes is an altogether more human Holmes, far more human than Doyle ever portrayed him.

And then there is the matter of Mary Russell. In most novels that attempt to continue the Holmes stories after Doyle leaves his character tending bees in the countryside, the apprentice figure (if there is any) is generally a young man related to the other principal characters in the original stories - a child/nephew/distant relation/intimate friend of Watson's, or Mycroft's, or perhaps one of the Baker Street Irregulars. Until encountering this novel, I had not read of a story wherein the apprentice-figure was female, and a teenager, at that. And, to be quite frank, it was a great big breath of fresh air. Mary is the type of character I would like to see more often in novels, as I've always preferred female characters who are capable of handling their own problems, with mile-wide stubborn streaks to match.

This is not to say, of course, that Mary is not without her problems as a character. While I do not question her intelligence or her apprenticeship with Holmes, there is something about the potential direction their relationship could take that bothers me somewhat. While I understand that Holmes was entirely human, and he is portrayed as such in the novel, the direction this is taking does make me tip my head sideways and squint a little. Not to say I won't accept it when it comes, as the setup is already there and thus it will not take me by surprise, but it does seem a bit unnecessary to me, if it does go that way.

I also question, somewhat, King's portrayal of Watson. His absence throughout most of the story is rather astonishing, to say the least, although I am willing to attribute this to the point-of-view employed in the novel: since it is told from Mary's point-of-view, it only makes sense that she would not speak of Watson until she had been introduced to him, and since most of the early part of the novel takes place in Sussex, Watson's absence makes sense. But in the second half of the novel, when mutual danger brings Holmes, Mary, Watson and Mycroft together, I feel like Watson is not as sharp as he could have been, especially when compared to the last few Holmes stories, when it seemed like Watson had come into his own. But as this is only the first book, I'll give the others a chance. Maybe Watson will be given his own chance to shine.

Aside from those problems, though, the story is really quite good, with a feel very close to The Sign of Four, as opposed to some of the more sedate stories. Mary's voice is pleasant to read, and her dry wit is much appreciated and quite enjoyable, especially for the reader who might find Doyle's narration tedious to read. Purists will likely find much to dislike, but for readers who couldn't give a flying fig about “purity,” or who are simply more willing to let writers play with what they are given (like I do), or even readers who are just coming off the Doyle stories and are looking for a Holmes fix, might find this novel - and those after it - interesting and, perhaps, enjoyable.