The Moor

 

The fourth Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes book, "The Moor", takes place in a familiar setting: the moor where Sherlock solved the "Hound of the Baskervilles" forty years earlier. Unfortunately it's been ages since I read that (I tend to reread the short stories, but not the longer novellas or full length books. I prefer Doyle's Sherlock in small doses), so there was probably a lot that I missed in this one that would have made more sense if "Hound" was more fresh in my mind. 

Sherlock sends Mary a telegraph and asks her to join him at the home of an old friend of his, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, who has spent his life on Dartmoor. The reverend has been seeing phantoms: a coach with a woman, accompanied by...you guessed it...a large dog. Of course in the Doyle story Sherlock proved the hound was no more than a big dog painted to glow in the dark and look spectral. Sherlock and Mary separate to comb for clues. There were some funny bits, Mary really is very witty, and the mystery was interesting. Still not as good as the "Beekeeper's Apprentice", but I like it better than books 2 and 3.