Laurie R. King Libri

For Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad is a delicious anticipation. But the longed for sweetness of their homecoming is quickly tempered by a bitter memory from her husband's past.

Mary and Sherlock head to San Francisco to settle the Russell estate and there the trauma Mary has been suppressing since childhood starts to reassert itself.

Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, have stirred the wrath and the limitless resources of those they've thwarted. Now they are separated and on the run, wanted by the police, and pursued across the Continent by a ruthless enemy with powerful connections.

London, 1926. Harris Stuyvesant, agent of the US Bureau of Investigation, is on a mission. A series of bomb attacks on American soil, thought to be the work of an up-and-coming British politician, have left him with a vendetta more personal than professional. But when his search for answers leads him to government official Aldous Carstairs, the US agent may find himself in over his head.At Carstairs' recommendation, Stuyvesant enlists the help of Bennett Grey, a man with unique abilities. After the Great War left him with an excruciating sensitivity to human deceit, Grey has withdrawn from the world. Now, however, he must help the American insert himself into the terrorist's rich and radical social circle. Here Stuyvesant uncovers hidden secrets, a horrifying conspiracy, and wonders if he can trust his touchstone, Grey, to reveal the most dangerous player of all . . .

Laurie R. King illuminates the hidden corners of her beloved Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series in this dynamic short story collection.

A queen, a castle, a dark and ageless threat--all await Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes in this chilling new adventure

From the award-winning author of "Justice Hall" and "Folly" comes this "New York Times" bestselling novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and her husband and partner, Sherlock Holmes.

A June summer's evening, on the Sussex Downs, in 1925. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are called in when an old friend's aunt fails to return following a supervised outing from Bedlam. The last thing Russell wants is to deal with the mad, and yet, she can't say no. The Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, yet she seemed to be improving-- or at least, finding a point of balance in her madness. So why did she disappear? Did she take the family's jewels with her, or did someone else? The trail leads through a lunatic asylum's stony halls to the warm Venice lagoon, where beauty is jarred by Mussolini's Blackshirts, where the gilded Lido set may be tempting a madwoman, and where Cole Porter sits at a piano, playing with ideas. -- adapted from back cover