An Agatha Award Best Novel Nominee Named One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association From New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King comes the book that introduced us to the ingenious Mary Russell'Sherlock Holmes mysteries In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees when a young woman literally stumbles into him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes-and match him wit for wit. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. In their first case together, they must track down a kidnapped American senator's daughter and confront a truly cunning adversary-a bomber who has set trip wires for the sleuths and who will stop at nothing to end their partnership. Full of brilliant deductions, disguises, and dangers, this first book of the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mysteries is "wonderfully original and entertaining . . . absorbing from beginning to end" ( Booklist ).