Dreaming Spies, by Laurie King

This adventure of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes is set upon a ship headed towards the Far East from India. As usual there is a cast of characters that provide entertainment for Holmes and Russell in the way of speculating about who they are and why they are traveling.

Haruki Sato is one of those travelers. She is a Japanese woman headed for home. She will become a friend of Mary Russell and provide language training for her and Holmes on their trip.

There are others aboard who as it turns out Holmes knows something about. A Lord Darley is there and Holmes knows that he is a crook. Thus the questions arise why he is on the ship.

I must say that the book is not necessarily lengthy, but it felt that way as I was reading. There is so much time spent on talking about Shipboard classes that Haruki Sato teaches and the different people involved. There is so much discussion on writers and their poems and other such things that the book becomes a bit of a bore.

Rather than focusing on the plot of something great for Holmes to discover we have a kind of long build up of boring ship board issues that eventually just get to tedious to wade through.

I found myself losing interest as there was nothing to engage the mind in the way of intrigue.

If you are a Mary Russell fan I am sure you will like the book, but if you are wanting a fast paced, intrigued filled, who is the spy type book then this is not for you.