I really enjoyed the look into Mary's past and the way Sherlock dealt with the fragile nature of the mystery here. ( )

My favorite of this series!
( )

After the adventure in The Game, are Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes on a route to San Francisco to settle some legal affairs surrounding the inheritance of Mary's family's estate. But, Mary is having awful nightmares as the ship is closing in on San Francisco. Could the nightmares have something to do with the city and the horrible earthquake that devastated the city? But, as far as Mary knows her family not even there during the earthquake, or were they?

Mary has always lived with the guilt of causing her family's death in a car accident when she was young. And, now she is traveling back to San Francisco, for the first time since her parents and younger brother died. Her nightmare is causing her sleeping problems and she is wondering what is causing them? She decides in San Francisco to see the psychiatrist that helped her after her family's death, and she is horrified to learn that the women have been murdered. Why would anyone kill her and could it have something to do with Mary's family?

There is much going on in this book and it's interesting to learn more about Mary's family, about her life before she came to England to stay with her aunt after her family died. The story is suspenseful and secrets are revealed as the story progress. Looked Rooms is one of my favorite books in this series, sure I have a lot of them. But, this is one that has a really intensive story and learning more about Mary's past is great. ( )

I thought this one was going to end up my least favourite of the series when it started. I've been listening to these on audio and I have sometimes struggled with the author's beautifully written but ultimately long descriptive passages. Couple this with the fact that I lost patience with Mary and her inability to act rationally pretty early on and I spent some moments moaning at my car's audio system to "get on with it already!"

Then the author changed the POV to Holmes. She's never done that before and I was even more apprehensive about the book, but in was at this point, in fact, that the book took off for me. To do Holmes justice requires that the language become more succinct and I found the alternating view points were just what I needed to temper my impatience with Mary's internal rambles.

There's not much "mystery" in this book; the author introduced characters who served no purpose other than to provide for the existence of the villain so I was never in any doubt who it was, but there's so much more to the book than just the 'whodunnit' and I enjoyed the ride as all the pieces came together.

The writing is beautiful, rich and descriptive (even the lengthy internal monologues - especially those, actually) and ultimately I was riveted as I always am. I keep telling myself that I should just read these so I can skim the monologues but Jenny Sterling's brilliant narration keeps me coming back to the audio again and again. ( )

After their adventures in India Holmes and Russell make a long-delayed side trip to San Francisco. Mary hasn't been there since she was fourteen and was the only survivor of the car accident that killed her parents and younger brother. She was gravely injured and traumatized by the accident. She did some work with psychiatrist Dr. Ginzburg before moving to England to live with her aunt.

Now it is time to meet with her lawyers and make some decisions about the businesses and properties left to her when her parents died. But Mary is being troubled by three recurring dreams that are causing insomnia and lack of appetite. Holmes is worried for her.

When they arrive in San Francisco, they are confronted with even more mystery. A strange codicil to her father's will has kept their family home empty since it requires that entry is only permitted with a member of the family. The house is neglected and the grounds are vastly overgrown. But it appears that someone has been inside and searched the place.

Mary has always insisted that she was not in San Francisco during the 1906 quake and fires but she learns that she was which explains the first dream about flying objects. The second dream about a faceless man takes longer to figure out but it also had its origin during 1906. The third dream about secret rooms takes the longest to figure out.

While Mary is meeting with lawyers and meeting old friends that she barely remembers, Holmes is busy looking into the past the Mary has forgotten. Holmes even recruits Dashiell Hammett as his irregular since Mary is unavailable. Holmes comes to the conclusion that the accident that Mary has blamed herself for was really a murder designed to look like an accident.

This story is different than many of the earlier adventures in that there are sections told from Mary's point of view and other sections told from Sherlock's point of view. It was a wonderful adventure that illuminated Mary's past both for the reader and for Mary. I loved the San Francisco setting and the various characters including some residents of Chinatown. ( )