These books are too slow. Not enough Holmesian brilliance.

Not enough action.

A Letter of Mary is the third in the Mary Russell mystery series of novels by Laurie R. King. 

This is the first case that Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes work on together as husband and wife. …

August 1923

… an unexpected visit from Dorothy Ruskin, an elderly amateur archeologist from the Holy Land, who met the couple four and a half years earlier during the events from O Jerusalem (novel).

As a gift, Ruskin presents Russell with an inlaid box containing a papyrus scroll, which seems to be a genuine first-century letter by Mary Magdalene.

When she returns to London that evening, Ruskin is killed in a hit-and-run accident with only two witnesses.

When Holmes and Russell visit London to identify the body, they discover evidence of foul play. …