Pirate King: A novel of suspense by Laurie R King/Book Review

Pirate King: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes (Russell & Holmes, Book 11)

Laurie R. King (Author)

Hardcover: 320 pages

Publisher: Bantam (September 6, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0553807986

ISBN-13: 978-0553807981

Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches 

Pirate King is a Laurie King treasure chest—thrilling, intelligent, romantic, a swiftly unreeling masterpiece of suspense. 
“The Mary Russell series is the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today.”—Lee Child

Product Description

In this latest adventure featuring the intrepid Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King takes readers into the frenetic world of silent films—where the pirates are real and the shooting isn’t all done with cameras.

In England’s young silent-film industry, the megalomaniacal Randolph Fflytte is king. Nevertheless, at the request of Scotland Yard, Mary Russell is dispatched to investigate rumors of criminal activities that swirl around Fflytte’s popular movie studio. So Russell is traveling undercover to Portugal, along with the film crew that is gearing up to shoot a cinematic extravaganza, Pirate King. Based on Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, the project will either set the standard for moviemaking for a generation . . . or sink a boatload of careers.

Nothing seems amiss until the enormous company starts rehearsals in Lisbon, where the thirteen blond-haired, blue-eyed actresses whom Mary is bemusedly chaperoning meet the swarm of real buccaneers Fflytte has recruited to provide authenticity. But when the crew embarks for Morocco and the actual filming, Russell feels a building storm of trouble: a derelict boat, a film crew with secrets, ominous currents between the pirates, decks awash with budding romance—and now the pirates are ignoring Fflytte and answering only to their dangerous outlaw leader. Plus, there’s a spy on board. Where can Sherlock Holmes be? As movie make-believe becomes true terror, Russell and Holmes themselves may experience a final fadeout.

PRAISES

“Brilliant and beautifully complex….Her descriptions of locales are voluptuous, and her continued delineation of the relationship of Russell and Holmes exquisitely portrays the eroticism of intellectual give-and-take.”  —Booklist

“The great marvel of King’s series is that she’s managed to preserve the integrity of Holmes’s character and yet somehow conjure up a woman astute, edgy, and compelling enough to be the partner of his mind as well as his heart.” —The Washington Post Book World

“A lively adventure in the very best of intellectual company.”—The New York Times

“Erudite, fascinating . . . by all odds the most successful re-creation of the famous inhabitant of 221B Baker Street ever attempted.”—Houston Chronicle

“Imaginative and subtle.”—The Seattle Times

“Impossible to put down.”—Romantic Times

“Remarkably beguiling.”—The Boston Globe

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REVIEW

The Pirate King of the title is a reference to the Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan, a reference appropriate both in plot and motif. William S. Gilbert himself might have appreciated the ending, which mixes Gilbert's fairytale style with a mercantile Machiavellianism. It is much to her credit that Laurie King actually pulls it off. (Though some might disagree, the only part that seems implausible to me is the pace of those particular events.)

King's narrative is generally good and her descriptive skills a bit better. I found them actually moving in spots; others may disagree.

The story's weaknesses are the tangle of story layers necessary (a story about an adventure whilst filming a movie about the making of a play) and a certain formulaic feel to some of the Russell-Holmes scenes. One in particular has me wondering whether King lost touch with her characters or whether she is planning some future development. In my opinion, the best books in the series are the early ones that develop that relationship. At this point, it may be hard to sustain continued development, especially as King has castled Holmes queen-side, moving him well out of the reader's eye for most of the story.

Since the whole point of the series may have been to use Holmes as a launching-point for Russell, the stories may drift further and further from the Holmesian root. I think that a shame. I also think it a shame that Russell shadows Holmes so completely. The partnership of Russell and Holmes was a daring, outrageous stroke. It made the series in the beginning, and the forgetting of it may be the series's unmaking.