::: Language of Bees (Laurie R. King)

Ah, another fantabulous success in the Holmes/Russell saga. What can I say? She's brilliant. This one brings in Chinese prostitutes, surrealist painters, mysterious murders (animal and human) at pagan sites across England, early air travel, a psychopath with a god complex, and of course the bees. Pretty neat. Oh, and Sherlock Holmes has a son. (That's not as much of a spoiler as you might think, since you find it out in the first ten pages. I won't give away who the mother is, though.) I love these people. Holmes and Russell are such a great pair -- some people go for looks, some for money, but me, I'm hot for the mutual mental stimulation. Nerdy but true. (OK, looks and money don't hurt either and best of all if you can have all three, but if I had to choose just ONE...well, you get the idea.)

As usual, finishing one of her Holmes/Russell books leaves me in an uneasy state of mingled satisfaction and depression: satisfaction for the great story I just finished, depression that I can't actually meet these people. I feel the same way when I finish one of the Lord Peter Wimsey books. I should make that one of my shelves on Goodreads: "Books you wish you could actually inhabit so you could meet the characters." It would be a fairly short list; Tolkien would not be on it, for example, because although I love the books with a passion, the characters are so finished at the end of the book, it's hard to imagine what one would talk to them about ("So, Bilbo, found any nice jewelry lately?" "Aragorn, how's that whole King thing working out for you?" etc etc etc). But Dagny and Francisco would be on my list, and the early Anne McCaffrey, and possibly Half Magic (although that might be a bit like getting dropped into Leave It to Beaver...)