Mary Russell: Fictional Character You Should Totally Love

So my folks used to have this rule when we went to the bookstore-- I could get one crap book (defined by my father as anything I could read in less than three hours) for every serious book (defined by me as something my father wanted me to read that I totally knew would be mad boring).

This led to a lot of me reading Nancy Drew books hidden inside "The Black Pearl." Bwah ha ha, take that parental system of promoting literacy. I totally played you.

But bottom line: whatever crap boring book I had to pretend to read to get The Beekeeper's Apprentice when I was in 5th Grade? Totally worth it. Because that's where I met Mary Russell.



Okay so here's the deal:

Mary Russel is young, Jewish, and super-brill. And she's wandering around Sussex one afternoon in 1915, steps on Sherlock Holmes, and becomes his new partner/BFF/eventual-jail-bait-wife.

Now I know what you're saying-- Clair, this sounds like bad fanfiction. Like bad Mary Sue fanfiction where she's going to turn out to have powers or something and secretly be a fairy princess and her middle name is Rain or some crap.

But you're wrong! Because against all odds it turns out to be awesome! Furreals, guys-- really awesome!

Reasons She's Awesome


1) Hot Chicks Wear Glasses: Dude, she's a female Sherlock Holmes. That's like taking awesome and making it hot and blond! Why wouldn't you love that?

2) She's Well-Written: I kind of don't like anything else Laurie R King writes. But for some reason the Mary Russell series is like my favorite thing ever and I've reread every one of these books dozens of times and they keep getting better the more I read them.

3) It's History and Junk
Not like how Xena was history (did you know that Pices happened because Xena threw a fish into space? True story.) but real honest to goodness history. Like, historical maps and conflicts and information you'll never read/listen to in history class. The growth of Palestine, the trials of India under imperialist rule, the changes of social class systems brought about by the first world war-- fascinating stuff you won't even notice you're learning until you've already learned it!


4) King Doesn't Mess Holmes Up
Because as a Holmesian purist from my earliest years, and a Bretthead to boot, I know I logically should hate this concept. Except King writes both Holmes and Russell as completely believable characters, and manages to create her own cannon without destroying the tone of the original Holmes stories and the character Doyle created.

It works. I don't know how, but it totally does.

Having finished the 10th book in the series, "The God of the Hive," I can say that this is probably the one area in my life where my fifth grade self had taste. Not like how I thought The Rugrats movie was the pinnacle of great film making, or how plaid skirts were a good look.

Real taste. Literary taste. Go forth and share that taste. Because it's awesome (and elementary).

/puns.