The Beekeeper's Apprentice

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 in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles into his lap on the Sussex downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée, and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. This first book of the Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes mysteries is full of brilliant deduction, disguises, and danger.