Laurie R. King has 33 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 284 ratings. The most-rated is The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen.
The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen
Summary
This program includes a preface read by the author. From New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King comes the book that introduced us to the ingenious Mary Russell - Sherlock Holmes mysteries. In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees when a young woman literally stumbles into him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes - and match him wit for wit. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern 20th-century woman proves a deft protégée and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. In their first case together, they must track down a kidnapped American senator's daughter and confront a truly cunning adversary: a bomber who has set trip wires for the sleuths and who will stop at nothing to end their partnership. Full of brilliant deductions, disguises, and dangers, this first book of the Mary Russell - Sherlock Holmes mysteries is "wonderfully original and entertaining...absorbing from beginning to end." (Booklist). Named "One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries" by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.
©1994 Laurie R. King (P)2007 Recorded Books
Island of the Mad
Summary
With Mrs. Hudson gone from their lives and domestic chaos building, the last thing Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, need is to help an old friend with her mad and missing aunt. Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, since the loss of her brother and father in the Great War. And although her mental state seemed to be improving, she’s now disappeared after an outing from Bethlem Royal Hospital...better known as Bedlam. Russell wants nothing to do with the case - but she can’t say no. And at least it will get her away from the challenges of housework and back to the familiar business of investigation. To track down the vanished woman, she brings to the fore her deductive instincts and talent for subterfuge - and of course enlists her husband’s legendary prowess. Together, Russell and Holmes travel from the grim confines of Bedlam to the winding canals and sun-drenched Lido cabarets of Venice - only to find the foreboding shadow of Benito Mussolini darkening the fate of a city, an era, and a tormented English lady of privilege.
©2018 Laurie R. King (P)2018 Recorded Books
A Letter of Mary: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
Summary
The third book in the Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes series. It is 1923. Mary Russell Holmes and her husband, the retired Sherlock Holmes, are enjoying the summer together on their Sussex estate when they are visited by an old friend, Miss Dorothy Ruskin, an archeologist just returned from Palestine. She leaves in their protection an ancient manuscript which seems to hint at the possibility that Mary Magdalene was an apostle - an artifact certain to stir up a storm of biblical proportions in the Christian establishment. When Ruskin is suddenly killed in a tragic accident, Russell and Holmes find themselves on the trail of a fiendishly clever murderer. Brimming with political intrigue, theological arcana, and brilliant Holmesian deductions.
©1996 Laurie R. King (P)2007 Recorded Books
The Language of Bees
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King has won or been nominated for every major award in mystery writing. King's beloved sleuth Mary Russell here attempts to reverse her legendary husband, Sherlock Holmes', greatest failure.
©2009 Laurie R. King (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC
Locked Rooms
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King has won sweeping critical acclaim and an impressive collection of awards for her writing. Although other writers have tried, no one has matched King's ability to capture the allure of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. Haunted by her dreams, Mary Russell arrives in San Francisco in 1924 to settle her parents' estate. But she quickly encounters a few surprises and learns there may be a great deal more to her childhood in this city than she ever knew. As Mary tries to cobble the pieces of her shadowy past together, her husband Holmes wonders if she may be repressing vital memories. And one thing seems certain; someone wants Mary's remembrances to stay buried. King is at the top of her game with Locked Rooms, a wonderfully intricate and marvelously evocative mystery rich with unexpected twists and turns.
©2005 Laurie R. King (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC
Justice Hall
Summary
Only hours after Holmes and Russell return from solving one murky riddle on the moor, another knocks on their front door...literally. It's a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since. But it's not until Holmes and Russell arrive at Justice Hall, a home of unearthly perfection set in a garden modeled on Paradise, that they fully understand the irony echoed in the family motto, Justicia fortitudo mea est. A trail of ominous clues comprise a mystery that leads from an English hamlet to the city of Paris to the wild prairie of the New World. The trap is set, the game is afoot; but can Holmes and Russell catch an elusive killer, or has the murderer caught them?
©2002 Laurie R. King (P)2003 Recorded Books
The God of the Hive
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King enjoys immense popularity and a resounding chorus of critical acclaim for her exquisite mysteries. The God of the Hive continues the thread King began in The Language of Bees, in which Mary Russell and her famous husband, Sherlock Holmes, face trouble with Scotland Yard and the deadliest of adversaries.
©2010 Laurie R. King (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC
A Monstrous Regiment of Women: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
Summary
Winner of the Nero Wolfe Award It is 1921 and Mary Russell - Sherlock Holmes's brilliant apprentice, now an Oxford graduate with a degree in theology - is on the verge of acquiring a sizable inheritance. Independent at last, with a passion for divinity and detective work, her most baffling mystery may now involve Holmes and the burgeoning of a deeper affection between herself and the retired detective. Russell's attentions turn to the New Temple of God and its leader, Margery Childe, a charismatic suffragette and a mystic, whose draw on the young theology scholar is irresistible. But when four bluestockings from the Temple turn up dead shortly after changing their wills, could sins of a capital nature be afoot? Holmes and Russell investigate, as their partnership takes a surprising turn.
©1995 Laurie R. King (P)2008 Recorded Books
O Jerusalem
Summary
It is 1918. Coming out of retirement, an aging Sherlock Holmes travels to Palestine with his 19-year-old partner, Mary Russell. There, disguised as ragged Bedouins, they embark on a dangerous mission. If they fail, the holy city goes up in flames. With her unerring flair for the dramatic, Laurie R. King packs this novel with bloodcurdling adventure, clever disguises, and layers of intrigue. Jenny Sterlin's superb voicing of the prickly Holmes and the fiercely intelligent Russell captures every nuance of their unconventional relationship.
©1999 Laurie R. King (P)1999 Recorded Books
Dreaming Spies
Summary
For years now, readers of the Russell Memoirs have wondered about the tantalizing mentions of Japan. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes had spent three weeks there, between India (The Game) and San Francisco (Locked Rooms). The time has finally come to tell that story. It is 1925, and Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes arrive home to find...a stone. A stone with a name, which they last saw in the Tokyo garden of the future emperor of Japan. It is the first indication that the investigation they did for him in 1924 might not be as...complete as they had thought. In Japan there were spies, in Oxford there are dreams. In both places there is a small, dark-haired woman and danger.
©2015 Laurie R. King (P)2015 Recorded Books
The Moor: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
Summary
In the eerie wasteland of Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes summons his devoted wife and partner, Mary Russell, from her studies at Oxford to aid the investigation of a death and some disturbing phenomena of a decidedly supernatural origin. Through the mists of the moor there have been sightings of a spectral coach made of bones carrying a woman long-ago accused of murdering her husband - and of a hound with a single glowing eye. Returning to the scene of one of his most celebrated cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes and Russell investigate a mystery darker and more unforgiving than the moors themselves.
©1998 Laurie R. King (P)1998 Recorded Books
Riviera Gold
Summary
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes turn the Riviera upside-down to crack their most captivating case yet in the New York Times best-selling series that Lee Child called "the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today." It's summertime on the Riviera, where the Jazz Age is busily reinventing the holiday delights of warm days on golden sand and cool nights on terraces and dance floors. Just up the coast lies a more traditional pleasure ground: Monte Carlo, where fortunes are won, lost, stolen, and hidden away. So when Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes happen across the Côte d'Azur in this summer of 1925, they find themselves pulled between the young and the old, hot sun and cool jazz, new friendships and old loyalties, childlike pleasures and very grownup sins....
©2020 Laurie R. King (P)2020 Recorded Books
The Game
Summary
The seventh Mary Russell novel finds her searching for the missing Kimball O'Hara, the famous "Kim" of the Rudyard Kipling novel.
©2008 Tracie Peterson and Judith Miller (P)2008 Recorded Books,LLC
Garment of Shadows
Summary
In a strange room in Morocco, Mary Russell is trying to solve a pressing mystery: Who am I? She has awakened with shadows in her mind, blood on her hands, and soldiers pounding on the door. Out in the hivelike streets, she discovers herself strangely adept in the skills of the underworld, escaping through alleys and rooftops, picking pockets and locks. She is clothed like a man, and armed only with her wits and a scrap of paper containing a mysterious Arabic phrase. Overhead, warplanes pass ominously north. Meanwhile, Holmes is pulled by two old friends and a distant relation into the growing war between France, Spain, and the Rif Revolt led by Emir Abd el-Krim—who may be a Robin Hood or a power mad tribesman. The shadows of war are drawing over the ancient city of Fez, and Holmes badly wants the wisdom and courage of his wife, whom he’s learned, to his horror, has gone missing. As Holmes searches for her, and Russell searches for herself, each tries to crack deadly parallel puzzles before it’s too late for them, for Africa, and for the peace of Europe.
©2012 Laurie R. King (P)2012 Recorded Books
The Murder of Mary Russell
Summary
Laurie R. King's best-selling Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes series weaves rich historical detail and provocative themes with intriguing characters and enthralling suspense. Russell and Holmes have become one of modern literature's most beloved teams. But does this adventure end it all? Mary Russell is used to dark secrets - her own and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. Trust is a thing slowly given, but over the course of a decade together, the two have forged an indissoluble bond. And what of the other person to whom Mary Russell has opened her heart: the couple's longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson? Russell's faith and affection are suddenly shattered when a man arrives on the doorstep claiming to be Mrs. Hudson's son. What Samuel Hudson tells Russell cannot possibly be true, yet she believes him - as surely as she believes the threat of the gun in his hand. In a devastating instant, everything changes. And when the scene is discovered - a pool of blood on the floor, the smell of gunpowder in the air - the most shocking revelation of all is that the grim clues point directly to Clara Hudson. Or rather to Clarissa, the woman she was before Baker Street. The key to Russell's sacrifice lies in Mrs. Hudson's past. To uncover the truth, a frantic Sherlock Holmes must put aside his anguish and push deep into his housekeeper's secrets - to a time before her disguise was assumed, before her crimes were buried away. There is death here, and murder, and trust betrayed. And nothing will ever be the same.
©2016 Laurie R. King (P)2016 Recorded Books
Pirate King
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King’s books have received high praise from critics and have earned the Edgar, Creasey, Wolfe, Lambda, and Macavity awards. As Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes embark on their 11th adventure together, they find themselves immersed in the world of silent filmmaking. Here, the pirates are real—and unlike the shooting done with a camera, this sort can be deadly. 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 13 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.Pirate King is a Laurie King treasure chest—thrilling, intelligent, romantic, a swiftly unreeling masterpiece of suspense.
©2011 Laurie R.King (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC
Mary Russell's War
Summary
Laurie R. King illuminates the hidden corners of her beloved Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series in this dynamic story collection. In nine short stories, seven of which have never previously been available in print, and one brand-new, never-before-seen Sherlock Holmes mystery - available together for the first time - Laurie R. King blends her long-running brand of crime fiction with historical treats and narrative sleight of hand. At the heart of the collection is a prequel novella that begins with England's declaration of war in 1914. As told in Mary Russell's teenage diaries, the whip-smart girl investigates familial mysteries, tracks German spies through San Francisco, and generally delights with her extraordinary mind - until an unimaginable tragedy strikes. Here, too, is the case of a professor killed by a swarm of bees; Mrs. Hudson's investigation of a string of disappearing household items - and a lifelong secret; a revealing anecdote about a character integral to The God of the Hive; the story of Mary's beloved uncle Jake and a monumental hand of cards; and a series of postcards in which Mary searches for her missing husband, Sherlock Holmes. Last but not least, fans will be especially thrilled by Mary's account of her decision, at age 92, to publish her memoirs - and how she concluded that Ms. King should be the one to introduce her voice to the world.
©2016 Laurie R. King (P)2016 Recorded Books
Locked Rooms
Summary
In 1924, San Francisco is booming. The great fire and earthquake of 1906 cleared the ground for a modern city, but the closer she comes to the place she used to call home, the more troubling Mary Russell's dreams become. As Russell and her husband, the great detective Sherlock Holmes, attempt to settle their affairs in the City by the Bay, Mary's past isn't the only thing that catches up with them....
©2005 Laurie R. King (P)2005 Recorded Books LLC
The Game
Summary
In the early days of 1924, Mary Russell and her husband, the inimitable Sherlock Holmes, are given an urgent task by his brother, Mycroft: find a British spy gone missing along India's northwest frontier, where men are dying and trouble is brewing. The spy's name? It is one Holmes knows from his sojourn in India long ago, and one Russell knows from a book. It is Kimball O'Hara, known to the world by the name Rudyard Kipling called him - Kim....
©2004 Laurie R. King (P)2017 W. F. Howes Ltd
To Play the Fool
Summary
Homicide detectives Kate Martinelli and Al Hawkin are investigating the death of a man whose cremated remains are found in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Implicated in the death is Erasmus, a wandering soul and latter-day Shakespearean Fool who Kate doubts is guilty. He will say nothing to point the investigation away from himself, and Kate must not only prove his innocence, she must also nail the real killer.
©1995 Laurie R. King (P)2013 Recorded Books LLC