Royalty Visits The Rap Sheet

Today, all day, bestselling novelist Laurie R. King is guest-blogging over at The Rap Sheet. King is the author of the new historical thriller Touchstone, reviewed here at January just a few days ago.

In an introduction to King’s blogging visit, Rap Sheet editor J. Kingston Pierce writes:

King’s first novel, the Edgar Award-winning A Grave Talent (1993), introduced crime-fiction readers to Kate Martinelli, the lesbian San Francisco homicide inspector who has since headlined four more books, the latest of those being 2006’s The Art of Detection. King may be better known, however, for her series featuring Mary Russell, the resourceful younger woman and scholar who, in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994), met an aging Sherlock Holmes in Sussex in the early 20th century, learned his methods, and eventually married him -- at least in King’s fiction.

On top of those popular series installments, the 55-year-old King has penned a handful of standalone novels, including A Darker Place (1999) and Keeping Watch (2003). Of her latest, Touchstone (which came out just before the new year began, but carries a 2008 publication date), critic Dick Adler wrote in January Magazine:

Everything Laurie R. King writes is first-class, from her modern, totally feminist and often surprisingly touching Kate Martinelli mysteries to her Mary Russell thrillers, which manage to carry on with (and improve upon) Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of Sherlock Holmes and give the Great Detective a new life. King’s new novel, Touchstone, is one of the best books of any kind published in 2007 -- a terrific combination and culmination of her work so far.

King’s first Rap Sheet post is here.