Garment of Shadows

Garment of Shadows by Laurie R. King

Garment of Shadows is the 12th book in Laurie King's Mary Russell series which has seen Mary grow from a teenager who befriends the retired Sherlock Holmes, to his wife and equal partner in adventures all around the world. The setting for this book is the city of Fez in the early 1920s at a time when Morocco is divided between French and Spanish protectorates, and an independence movement with its own government is at war with both. Fez is the capital of the French section, and Holmes, a distant cousin to the French governor, comes to the city seeking his missing wife who is wandering the streets of Fez with amnesia. Mix in a bunch of thugs who are trying to kill them, a couple of British spies, a mute child of mysterious background, and both Russell and Holmes in disguise as local Berbers, and you have an idea of what the reader is in for.
While I enjoy Laurie King's writing, this book is not her best nor her worst. Russell's slow recovery of memory is well done, but there are times when the characters tell each other what happened that drag the story down. The author has done a lot of research on Fez, and gives many details about the setting, but there is little interaction with the Moroccans.