A queen, a castle, a dark and ageless threat—all await Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes in this chilling adventure. The queen is Marie of Roumania: the doubly royal granddaughter of Victoria, Empress of the British Empire, and Alexander II, Tsar of Russia. A famous beauty who was married at seventeen into Roumania’s young dynasty, Marie had beguiled the Paris Peace Conference into returning her adopted country’s long-lost provinces, singlehandedly transforming Roumania from a backwater into a force. The castle is Bran: a tall, quirky, ancient structure perched on high rocks overlooking the border between Roumania and its newly regained territory of Transylvania. The castle was a gift to Queen Marie, a thank-you from her people, and she loves it as she loves her own children. The threat is . . . well, that is less clear. Shadowy figures, vague whispers, the fears of girls, dangers that may be only accidents. But this is a land of long memory and hidden corners, a land that had known Vlad the Impaler, a land from whose churchyards the shades creep. When Queen Marie calls, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are as dubious as they are reluctant. But a young girl is involved, and a beautiful queen. Surely it won’t take long to shine light on this unlikely case of what would seem to be strigoi? Or, as they are known in the West . . . vampires. “King smoothly slips in fascinating historical details about the life of Marie of Roumania, all the while keeping the plot galloping along at high speed. This is a treat for old fans and newcomers alike.” — Publishers Weekly “Highly recommend for historical mystery fans who have followed the series, as well as readers looking for historical heroines with agency such as Maisie Dobbs, Bess Crawford, or Phryne Fisher.” — Library Journal (starred review) “Each book in the Russell and Holmes series is a treat. . . . The novels are extremely atmospheric. . . . Kudos to Laurie King for keeping the legend [of Sherlock Holmes] alive with such entertaining novels, and Mary Russell keeping him on his toes.” — Mystery & Suspense Magazine “As per the customary quality of her work, Laurie R. King has imbued Castle Shade with all the creativity and intelligence deserving of a series that both immortalizes an ingenious, feminist heroine of her own making and continues the legacy of the astonishingly observant and eminently logical London gentleman whose name has become synonymous with detection.” — BookTrib “[ Castle Shade ] has everything you want in a book. . . . A good mystery, fun characters and a story you don’t want to put down.” — Red Carpet Crash Laurie R. King is the award-winning, bestselling author of sixteen Mary Russell mysteries, five contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, and many acclaimed stand-alone novels such as Folly , Touchstone , The Bones of Paris , and Lockdown . She lives in Northern California, where she is at work on her next Mary Russell mystery. Chapter One I ripped myself from the fever-dream somewhere west of Ljubliana. My face was pressed up to a window, as it had been in the dream. Outside was the same mist-soaked night, the same eerie glow of a full moon. I jerked upright and thrust out my hands, turning them over, back and front—but even in the near-dark, I could see they were perfectly clean. There were no red and dripping stains gloving the skin. And no wolves, I thought, chasing after the smell of blood on my hands. The pack’s vivid howls merged into the distant rise and fall of a passing train’s whistle, while my horse-drawn carriage and its sinister driver became, reluctantly, an aged train compartment behind a steam-powered engine. I shuddered to rid myself of the macabre sensations, then pulled the thin blanket back up around my shoulders, coughing as I patted around for my glasses. With them on my nose, menace retreated a step. Only a nightmare. Wolves and a carriage, triggered by our destination. The blood, though . . . ​I’d had the blood of two different dead men on my hands, these past months. Perhaps I should have anticipated the psychic toll. I wiped ineffectually at the cracked window, trying to see where we were. Not a mysterious forest, thank goodness, but a railway station, with one dim light shining through the decorative iron braces of the platform roof. Silent and deserted. How long had I been here? For that matter, where was here? My memories weren’t entirely gone—I knew what that felt like—just . . . ​slow. Like pulling a boot from deep mud. Let me see: we had boarded the train in the Côte d’Azur. And we were headed to Roumania. The last station-marker I’d noticed was—Padua? None of which helped much. I squinted at the rusty and ill-lit metal sign, decided that I had assembled as much information as I could without outside resources, tossed back the travelling rug—and only then realised that I was not alone in the compartment. “Holmes, what are you—” I began, then dissolved into a fit of coug