Laurie R. King - Riviera Gold (16th Russell & Holmes)

Laurie R. King is the New York Times bestselling author of 27 novels and other works, including the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories (from The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, named one of the 20th century’s best crime novels by the IMBA, to 2018’s Island of the Mad). She has won an alphabet of prizes from Agatha to Wolfe, been chosen as guest of honor at several crime conventions, and is probably the only writer to have both an Edgar and an honorary doctorate in theology. She was inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars in 2010, as “The Red Circle.”

Riviera Gold - The Riviera in 1925 is a playground for the rich built on corruption and greed. It is a place where treasure can be false, where love can destroy, and where life, as Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes will discover, can be cheap—even when it is made of solid gold.

It’s summertime on the Riviera, and the Jazz Age has come to France’s once-sleepy coastline. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes find themselves immersed in the social scene of American expatriates, who spend their days on the beach and their evenings in villas filled with music and enthralling conversation. And even more enticing is the nearby Monte Carlo, where fortunes are won, lost, stolen, and sometimes hidden away.

But despite the luxury and leisure, a new mystery arises. Mrs. Hudson, Russell and Holmes’ former housekeeper, hasn’t been seen since she fled England under a cloud of murder accusations. But she proves elusive, managing to avoid even the great Sherlock Holmes as he and Russell try to figure out what new trouble she is in.

For a beautiful young man has been found dead in Mrs. Hudson’s front room—making her the prime suspect in yet another murder. Russell is certain that Mrs. Hudson is innocent; Holmes is not quite so sure. But the old woman’s colorful past has been a source of tension between them before this, and now, the dangerous players who control Monte Carlo’s gilded casinos may stop at nothing to keep the pair away from the dark corners that Mrs. Hudson’s youthful history could bring to light.