I've read a couple of the later books in this ongoing series of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes so I was very interested to see how it all started. I'm impressed. Mary's introduction and the overall story is mature and stands up well to King's later books in the series.

The story seems rather basic at the start - an introduction to the newest character in the Sherlock Holmes tome and then a series of vignettes of Russell and Holmes' first "cases" but the trajectory of the book changes and suddenly they're in the middle of a most serious case that left me guessing to the very end.

Well done Ms. King!