O Jerusalem

Rating:
Summary: Loved It!
Review: This book is one of the best in her Mary Russel series! Superbly written and is a wonderful story. A must have for any Sherlock Holmes fanatic!

Rating:
Summary: The Most Enjoyable Read of the Summer!
Review: Laurie King brings us back to the days when the Holmes/Russell partnership's foundation was still solidifying. Their trip to the Holy Land gives them the opportunity to grow from master and apprentice to full partners in mind and in crime. Ms. King's beautiful portrayal of British-occupied Palestine gives the reader a marvelous understanding of the geography, politics, and cultures of this most important part of the world. The mystery itself is brillant and exciting. Personally, I can't wait until the companion novel comes out and reunites Holmes, Russell, and their mysteriously romantic Arabic compatriots!

Rating:
Summary: Incredible! Well done, Laurie...
Review: This is by far one of the best novels I have read. It is beautifully written with wonderful character development and an exciting story line. The only word to describe the experience of reading it is "wow." I was *very* surprised at some of the negative reviews! The mystery is intriguing, involving the uncovering of a bomb plot with far-reaching consequences. It is, in my opinion, one of the best in the series! Bravi!

Rating:
Summary: O Jerusalem or How I Saw the Holy Land by Foot
Review: After loving the first three Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell mysteries, I was terribly disappointed by THE MOOR, which I never even finished. I am halfway through O JERUSALEM and doubt that I will finish it either. I understand that Laurie King is a biblical scholar interested in the Holy Land. She used this knowledge to advantage in A LETTER TO MARY. However, if this is where her heart is, she needs to turn to non-fiction writing. O JERUSALEM is an endless travelogue of the Holy Land in the early 20th century. The mystery is so thin as to be non-existent. While I find the descriptions somewhat interesting, I did not buy a history and/or travel guide to the Holy Land. I purchased the book thinking I was buying a Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell MYSTERY. I am afraid I have bought my last Laurie R. King hardcover book.

Rating:
Summary: Most entertaining of recent Holmes-Russell novels
Review: In this book, King returns to the "lost time" of the Beekeeper's Apprentice and shows us Mary Russell's vacation in Jerusalem and surrounding areas. King has recaptured some of the early relationship between Holmes and Russell that made her early books so entertaining. This is not a book for those expecting a strict Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but makes an enjoyable read for general readers looking for an exciting novel. One drawback, if you haven't read The Beekeeper's Apprentice, you'll probably be lost. From that stand-point, the book fails as a novel.

Rating:
Summary: I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I can't beleve there are people who DIDN'T like like this book! I think it is the best one so far even better than the first! The mistery was perfect and the descriptions were wonderful!It's also very funny which is something the last two books seemed to lack. READ THIS BOOK!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Lots of Filler
Review: This book was written as if the author was being paid by the word. Take out the filler and you have a short story fit for one of the romance magazines. If you prefer Favio as your Sherlock Holmes this is for you. Every author is entitled to attempt to write one Sherlock Holmes "copy." Laurie King is making a career out of another authors characters.

Rating:
Summary: A real disappointment.
Review: I cannot recommend O JERUSALEM! to anyone who has actually read Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Laurie King is using this character to attract readers to her increasingly feeble series of Mary Russell books. Detection takes a back seat to travel writing, Biblical history and endless descriptions of meals. (Mary Russell spends more time describing meals than her relationship with the other characters in this book. A more appropriate title to this book might be "Let's Do Lunch in Jerusalem.") After a while King settles down and has a fairly good description of a trip through a cave, but there is no real suspense. Dramatic events occur fleetingly, since King's heart isn't in it. Once again the villain makes a late, cursory, appearance. Worst of all, Holmes does very little detection. He takes a back seat to his uninteresting protege. O JERUSALEM makes so many references to other books in King's Mary Russell series that it is essential to read/purchase two others to understand what is going on here (sort of a literary Care Bears Collection.) There is no wit in this book. King's idea of a joke is to have Holmes masquerading as a "Colonel William Gillette." If you find this amusing, you might enjoy the rest of this. I didn't, and didn't. King also has a strange compulsion to humiliate and marginalize Holmes; this has been the case for some time, but the instance is particularly offensive here. It is as if, at the end of this century, the man of genius is suspect and the 'brain' who considers the rest of his body 'a mere appendix' has to be physically and graphically humiliated to bring him down to 'our' level. Sad, very sad.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it.
Review: Fans of Laurie King will have realized that the series is thinning a bit in its age, but all is not lost. The Moor was a winner, and O, Jerusalem is also enjoyable. There is less character development, of course, seeing as how King has doubled back a bit in the adventure. Russell doesn't have quite the wit and sardonic attitude she had back in the glorious beginning, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and I am looking forward to the next.

Rating:
Summary: Mystery and adventure in the grandest style of intrigue.
Review: Laurie King say or may not be popular among traditional Sherlockians, but she sure knows how to tell a story. The interweaving of the traditional Sherlock and the clever and witty Mary Russell with the introduction of Mahmoud and Ali is top flight adventure. Let us hope that there are more Sherlock/Mary books in the works and I'd like to see Mahmoud and Ali as well. Well done, Laurie.