Knave of Diamonds: 2025's Mary Russell Novel Gets A Review

I do love Laurie R. King's Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell series.  I've reviewed Dreaming Spies on this blog here ,  Island of the Mad  also on this blog here  and The Lantern's Dance, last year's Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell novel here . In addition I reviewed Back To The Garden, a standalone Laurie R. King book  here.  I downloaded a copy of this book from Net Galley.  This means the publisher approved my receiving of this book probably due to my publishing reviews on one of my blogs, and on Goodreads.

I was hoping that Knave of Diamonds would be as dramatic as Island of the Mad or as complex as The Lantern's Dance.   This post on the most recent Laurie R. King mystery will not be quite as positive as those previous reviews.  

                                               

 I noted that Mary Russell referred to an American dancer as "Josephine something or other" who had come to Paris to join a "revue negre".  This means that the dancer is African American and is likely to be Josephine Baker.  I reviewed Josephine Baker's Last Dance by Sherry Jones on this blog here.  So Mary Russell had never heard of Josephine Baker, and there is no reason why she should have heard of her.  She had no connections to either African Americans or the dance world.  

Jacob Russell, Mary's Uncle Jake, is a prominent character in Knave of Diamonds.  There are numerous chapters from his viewpoint.  Fortunately, the chapter viewpoints are labeled.  This isn't always the case in multiple viewpoint books.  So I was relieved not to have to do detective work to figure out which character was speaking.  

Jake is a thief, but not entirely reprehensible. Although more ethical than some thieves,  Jake is no Robin Hood.  He may rob from the rich, but he keeps the proceeds for himself.

One detail that I thought I'd include in this review is that Jake didn't realize that a signet ring could be important even though it wasn't part of the Irish Crown Jewels whose theft was the central event of the plot.  Lords used signet rings to validate documents.  So the Vicars, who were the noble family involved in the case, should probably have considered it a significant heirloom. The signet ring didn't come up elsewhere in the plot, and I thought that was rather curious.

The Stealing of the Irish Crown Jewels by Myles Dunegan, which is a factual account of the actual theft of the Irish Crown Jewels,  which is fictionally described  in Knave of  Diamonds, is cited by Laurie R. King as source material.  I decided to buy a Kindle copy, and hope to review it eventually.   

In conclusion, I was intrigued by the historical aspect of Knave of Diamonds and want to find out more about it even though I experienced the novel as overlong.