Castle Shade
Castle Shade (Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes #17)
By: Laurie R. King
“You said in Monaco you had an interesting woman with an intriguing problem.”
I have a knack for picking up series in the middle instead of the beginning. If you plan to read this from book one then be aware that I will probably be giving away some things in this review.
What drew me to this book was Sherlock Holmes (obviously). I realized I don’t know if I’ve ever read any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes books, but I’ve seen all the Sherlock movies (both the Downey Jr. and Cumberbatch versions) and I love a good detective book. Magpie Murders or the Charles Lenox books (of which I also started in the middle) are in the same vein as Sherlock Holmes. I figured I would like this as well.
I’m not a Sherlock superfan so I have no idea if the way she wrote does justice to Doyle’s characters, but I didn’t particularly feel engaged with this story.
As soon as it started I felt lost. It took me a bit to get my bearings. I even went back to read the summary and a few reviews of book one to figure out where we’ve come from. Both the setting (place and time period) and characters required quite a few pages to get a handle on.
Here’s the sitch: We are in the 1920s near Transylvania. Mary Russell, who is now 25, met Sherlock back when she was 15 and became his apprentice. At that time he was 60-something. Apparently she is super smart and good at everything and somewhat similar to Holmes’ personality. But, as of this book, they have been married for 5 years. I find this to be an odd and slightly disturbing pairing.
Not only is the age difference strange, but they still call each other by their last names and frankly, I had to keep telling myself they were even married. It felt more like just the partnership you would expect— not much romance to speak of. Maybe that’s how a marriage with Sherlock would function? They’re just ‘fond of’ each other? I don’t know. I just know that I didn’t like it. Plus they were just generally written blandly.
[Watson did not make an appearance in this book, but based on many reviews of the first book, readers did not like the author’s handling of the Watson character—not treating him as an equal but like a pitiful dimwit.]
So now that we’ve established our boring protagonists, let’s talk setting.
Sherlock has been summoned to help the Queen of Romania at Castle Bran in Transylvania. Cue visions of vampires.
First of all, this is a real castle. Here is a picture the author posted on her website of a replica used to help her write the story:
This particular castle was often said to be ‘Dracula’s castle’ but it sounds like there is no evidence to support this and may have just been some sort of PR campaign to get the castle more recognition.
Another piece of folklore tied into this story is that of the Countess of Bathory (aka The Blood Countess). Legend has it that she was one of the most prolific female serial killers (circa 1590-1610)— torturing and murdering young girls to supposedly bathe in and drink their blood.
This was particularly interesting to me because Tosca Lee had already written a great duology of books playing off this legend with a fantastical twist involving special powers given to her descendants— would highly recommend.
I love a story that incorporates history and legends into their stories.
So how do these two pieces of google-worthy folklore play into our story, Castle Shade? Well, in case you thought this book was about some really nice elm trees outside a magnificent castle, let me set the record straight: ‘shade’ here is referring to ‘ghost’ or ‘phantom.’
A series of incidents involving young girls at and around Castle Bran and the Queen, have people speculating things about the Queen similar to Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) and The Blood Countess— both of these originate from this geographic area and would thus be significant to the Queen’s village people.
Furthermore, the Queen has received threats regarding her daughter.
Sherlock and Russell must discover who is behind the threats and if there really is some sort of castle phantom with a thirst for blood. What is the purpose and who stands to benefit from these rumors or ‘spooky’ events?
Per Mary Russell: “This tale has everything but a talking cat.”
The last 20% of the book had some suspense, but overall, this book was a tidge bit boring to me. I think part of it was the fact that Russell was narrating and so we were told more than we were shown. Plus the language is at times hard to follow— I’m glad I read a digital version so I could highlight words I didn’t know and get definitions quickly. Your vocabulary will definitely expand while reading this book.
The first half of the book was pretty slow-moving. It seemed like a lot of the book involved giving historical background or detailed descriptions of the castle, the village, or routes from place to place. I don’t think I really knew where the story was even going until halfway through, so I didn’t like that.
Here’s the main question: Should you read this?
Well, if you haven’t read any of these before, I probably wouldn’t start here unless you are really interested in the folklore or location. I think you’d be better off following Russell and Sherlock from the very beginning. But if you’re easily bored with books, probably just pass on this.
If you have already read the first sixteen then you’re— well, you’re probably not still reading reviews for these, but you’re most likely going to like this one, so do it.
BUT AND ALSO… I would, again, recommend Tosca Lee’s books I already mentioned.
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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