Review: Lovely little read! Perhaps can be made into a novel?
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 6, 2013
I'm a great fan of Laurie King's 'Mary Russell' series: her creativity & dedication to the characters, the settings, and the mysteries make me almost believe that somewhere, someone has indeed received a trunk of old manuscripts and various bagatelles.This is a charming little tale, surprising in character, even though we know from the synopsis that the focus is on that most beleaguered of landladies, the redoubtable Mrs. Hudson. The synopsis provides the details you might want, but for .99 this is well worth the money. Reading at least the first 2 novels of the series as prerequisite will greatly enhance the pleasure of this wee tale.I also, perhaps foolishly(?), am wondering if this is a test-the-waters work for a novel with a bit more Hudson in it? Although it may be a discarded idea for an earlier work ... sigh.The only 'off' note for me was Mrs. Hudson using the word 'nosy' when being cranky with Mary. 'Nosy' as we know it dates from ~1880s & had more negative connotations for Victorians: I can't see Mrs. Hudson using that word to Mary. Given her kindly irascible Scots nature, I suspect in the situation she'd have gone more to her roots and called Mary 'lang-nebbie' or probably just 'nebbie', the Scots version of what modern English speakers mean by 'nosy'. But this is a small & nitpicking critique ... and also perhaps not accurate on my part!I *very* much enjoyed this story & am happy that it was made available!