It is 1924, and in England, Mycroft Holmes summons his brother Sherlock and Sherlock's wife, Mary Russell, to a meeting. Mycroft has a request on behalf of the government: go to India to find Kimball O'Hara, the Kim of Rudyard Kipling's book. No, not a fictional character, but a flesh-and-blood man who was part of British Intelligence in India for many years, and has been missing for three years. With a Bolshevik Russia making restless noises to the north and Indian hill rajas ever susceptible to turning their coats and going over to the Reds to help them oust the British, Kim is needed. So Holmes and Russell go off to India, where they receive yet another assignment: to go to the hill state of Khanpur, whose maharaja, Jumalpandra 'Jimmy', seems to be up to something sneaky. Therefore, disguised as itinerant magicians and assisted by a cheeky little imp named Bindra, the couple set off from Delhi...I've read a few Holmes tributes over the past few years, and I approach each new one I come across with some hesitation. Laurie R King's book (this is the first I've read, though it is the seventh in the series) is not exactly a homage to Holmes, because its central character is the narrator Mary Russell. And she is no Watson. She is Russ, equal (or so it would seem) in every way to Holmes himself. In dexterity, deftness, resourcefulness, everything. But then, why bung in Holmes, anyway? If you're writing about the greatest fictional detective, why relegate him to an adventure which doesn't require him to do any sleuthing? Because that's what The Game is: an adventure story, not a detective story. And an adventure story that jars at every twist and turn. As an Indian, reading badly-researched books set in India can be thoroughly off putting, and this one was right there at the top. As soon as I saw that 'Jumalpandra' (which, if you know Hindi, sounds like a cross between the Hindi words for a laxative and 'to break wind'), I knew this was not going to be an easy ride. And it wasn't. Not with someone called Rambachadur. Not with descriptions of saris worn tucked into little more than a string, and with a scarf draped over the head and shoulders. Not with the awful Hindi mentioned (thankfully only occasionally) as being spoken by supposed natives. Not with the many other errors relating to food, geography, costume, local tradition, etc. (And the tone of the narrator, while possibly true to the period, struck me as offensive and patronising by turn). My cribs with the book didn't stop there. The maharajas, true, did lead lives of debauchery more fantastic than fiction can probably make it, but the description of the maharaja's excesses in The Game are just too over the top to be believable. It's almost as if Laurie King decided that if she were going to set a book in the exotic East, it had to be as exotic as she could make it. Leave no stone unturned, so to say. Plus, I found something very icky about a 24-year old woman married to a 63-year old man. Even if the man is Sherlock Holmes. A domesticated Holmes, perhaps, though, who seems singularly adept at combing Mary Russell's long hair and pinning it up. If you like the Holmes canon, give this as wide a berth as you possibly can. And if you're Indian, the same applies. Avoid.
This is the seventh novel in King’s Mary Russell series and one of my favourites so far. In this instalment, Sherlock Holmes and his wife and partner Mary Russell travel to India to look for Kimball O’Hara – the hero of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. There is concern from on high that Kim, who has been missing for some three years, has either been captured or has turned traitor in the Great Game. The conceit of the narrative is disarming. When Mary Russell, who only knows of Kim from reading Kipling, asks if he is a real person, Holmes responds “As real as I am”. With that, the adventure begins. There’s a rush to get away from England, an ocean voyage through the Suez Canal, an American flapper, her possibly sinister brother, disguise and magic in India, a Maharaja with secrets and a street urchin who may have secrets of his own. And then there’s Kim – the idea of him and, ultimately, the actuality of him – as believable as Kipling’s Kim, albeit some thirty years older. For all of my general resistance to the concept of a novelist writing books using characters created by other writers, I love this series. King knows her source material well and treats it with love and respect. Her plotting is excellent and her characters are credible and interesting. She can also evoke the time and place in which her novels are set without fussy period detail. Of course, like a lot of fiction of this genre, this is a highly implausible tale and when I finished reading the book the silliness of it all struck home. But while reading, I was completely in the narrative and totally prepared to suspend disbelief. Knowing that Kimball O’Hara was to make an appearance in this novel made me decide to read Kipling’s Kim for the first time. It’s a book I'd previously avoided because I’m not keen on boys’ own adventure stories and I felt a bit iffy about Kipling generally because of his reputation as a supporter of the British imperialist enterprise. However, I listened to an audiobook edition of Kim and it was wonderful. (My review, is here, should anyone be interested in reading it). My enjoyment of this novel was enhanced by the experience of listening to Kim and my experience of listening to Kim was enhanced by reading King’s homage to that work. Immersing myself in India under British rule for a few days has given me lots of reading and listening enjoyment.
What do You think about The Game (2004)?
This book is another in the series of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes stories. I enjoyed the story and the cast of characters. In this story we find out that the character Kim in the Kipling book is real and worked gathering intelligence for England. He has gone missing for 3 years and other operatives have been found dead in an area of India bordering Russia. Sherlock Holmes brother, Mycroft, sends Mary and Sherlock to find Kim. Sherlock knows Kim from an adventure many years before. Going in disguise for part of the journey, Sherlock and Mary become suspicious of a eccentric maharajah. In the closing chapters, they discover a plot and they have to try to figure out a way to stop it. The book is a page turner and the excitement of Mary and Sherlock's escape from the maharajah makes for good reading. It's not the best in the series but it holds it's own with the others in this series.
—Doug Dams
A fabulous epic journey, not only in physical terms, but for Russell, in emotional terms (which is true of most of the novels in this series. Having Holmes drop in as a fully developed character, the author almost certainly has to put most of her drive into other characters). Mary Russell is now married to her mentor and friend, Sherlock Homes. They have traveled to India, at the behest of Mycroft Homes, to try to discover what has become of one of the British Empire's best spies...Kim, as in The Jungle Book. Along the way they pick up (or are picked up by) a boy, apparently a street urchin. And fall in with a group of other travelers, not quite so innocent as they seem. The book culminates in an intricate game of cat and mouse across some of the highlands of the Indian sub-continent, some in grand castles, and some facing the unrelenting realities of the fragility of life in a hostile environment. It is a page-turner, candle-burner type book that first entices, then tricks, and finally totally traps the reader. Caution: allow time to complete the book in one sitting.
—Patricia
This seventh book of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series ranks as my second favorite so far (after the first of the series,The Beekeeper's Apprentice). This time around sees the couple off to British India in 1924 in search of the missing Kimball O’Hara. This is a very intriguing concept since Kimball O’Hara is better known to us as the fictional character “Kim” from Rudyard Kipling’s masterwork. To combine such prominent fictional British characters as Sherlock Holmes and Kim is ingenious and when you throw in the incredibly original character of Mary Russell as Sherlock’s young but equally brilliant wife, we get the foundation for a great story.The subcontinent of India, especially at the time in which this novel takes place has always fascinated me. It’s just crying out for adventure and this novel doesn’t disappoint. It’s really more of an international espionage novel than a traditional Sherlock Holmes detective novel, something that can be said about all of the novels in this series. Kim is a trained British spy but has disappeared and so Mary and Sherlock act as spies themselves, going undercover as native travelling magicians to gather clues. The title, “The Game” refers to the Great Game of espionage. This was the time of Gandhi; political strife between Britain and Russia was prominent with India caught in between. It’s a lush landscape and to watch the characters play out the plot is a lot of fun.
—Benjamin Thomas
