Preliminary reaction: The Beekeeper's Apprentice

So, I finished The Beekeeper's Apprentice and was halfway through the second one before I realized I was supposed to tell my father before I got to that point. I'm afraid to call him, though, because I'm afraid I'll let slip I've guessed the Shocking Plot Twist he seems to think I would not see coming. Also, I have the third book already.

(In case you ever read this: You and mom are the ones who had me reading Agatha Christie in like the fifth grade or something. My pathological inability to be properly shocked by Shocking Plot Twists is totally your fault. But, seriously...unless there is some other Shocking Plot Twist about to materialize, the only thing shocking about this one is that I feel like by the time I actually get there, it will actually be well-earned.)

The thing about Beekeeper's Apprentice that won me over, aside from the sheer delight of all the "I can't believe Sherlock Holmes just said that" moments early on, is that Laurie King gets the relationship between Holmes and Watson. Her heroine, Mary Russel, is kind of an egotistical jerk like Holmes (this being the entire point), but even so, there is a subtlety and nuance to the treatment of Watson that is key to Conan Doyle's original stories and sadly absent from many film adaptations.

The whole thing, as I figured out pretty early on, is essentially about how these central relationships shape the lives of the characters. This makes it thoughtful as well as tremendous fun. I'm definitely in for more.

So, the next in the series is A Monstrous Regiment of Women. So far we have some very decent theology, rock solid analyses of biblical Greek and Hebrew, and also it's got Sherlock Holmes in it. This is kind of completely fantastic. Why didn't anyone tell me about this?

In other news, I went to the zoo with Erin, I saw bluebirds at Mount Carmel (up north of Alexandria), and my laptop's hard drive has been diagnosed with something terminal. I am surprisingly okay with that, probably because the guy on the phone promised me that someone would actually come out and fix it for me instead of me having to send it in and wait six weeks. But I still half expect them to say "oh, wait, sorry, that service is not available in your area" when they finally call to set it up. We'll see.