The Beekeeper's Apprentice

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is presented as a found manuscript, framed by an editor’s preface from author Laurie R. King. In it, she describes how she came into possession of the manuscript, which was written by Mary Russell. One day, she received a large box in the mail, inside of which was a “traveling trunk.” It was filled with miscellaneous artifacts and, at the bottom, a number of hand-written manuscripts. 

King claims that, under pressure from her editor, she typed up one of the manuscripts and sent it in as her own work. Her editor immediately spotted the differences between the draft and her usual work, and King admitted the truth. In the end, they decided to publish the original, but King confesses that despite her best efforts, she still doesn’t know who Mary Russell was or why the trunk was sent to her.

In a prelude, an elderly Mary Russell states that she is recounting her association with Sherlock Holmes, whose popular image was shaped by Dr. John Watson’s writings. The story is a first-person retrospective memoir written by Mary Russell, and she hopes to set the record straight as to Holmes’s true nature and character, while relating the adventures they had together.