Laurie R. King is probably best known for her terrific novels featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. This unique reimagining, which depicts Holmes much later in life than the many adventures we have lived through with him, makes for a stellar series that maintains the spirit of the greatest detective of all time. 

King clearly knows how to write a complex mystery. THOSE WHO ARE GONE, the second entry in her series starring SFPD Homicide Inspector Raquel Laing (following BACK TO THE GARDEN), is further proof of this.

"THOSE WHO ARE GONE is a first-rate novel and one of the crowing achievements of Laurie R. King’s career.... Storytelling like this should provide a long life for this series."

Raquel lives with her adoptive sister, Dee, an international online investigator. The action jumps through recent time periods in their lives and opens with Raquel, who had decided to step away from the SFPD after being severely injured on the job. Now she is informing Dee that she is planning to return as a consulting detective. This news is not well received by Dee, who had brought Raquel into her business while she recovered.
 
Dee decides to join Raquel in a mission that she has always been obsessed with: finding out what happened to her birth family who are now long gone. We then step back to the previous year and the case that nearly cost Raquel her life. When she arrives at the site of a bound and murdered young man in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, Raquel and her partner have no clue what impact the deceased drug dealer, Gilbert Gallegos, will have on both of their lives.

As she is sorting all of this out, Raquel is also soliciting advice from her mentor, Al Hawkin, about the series of cold cases he is aware of that might be connected to the death of her birth parents. The gone, or departed, in this novel are not just represented by the victims of the active cases these crime fighters are working but also the ghosts of their own familial pasts.

The Gallegos investigation leads to a well-known restaurateur who may have been mixed up in some dark dealings that were beyond his capabilities. The final conflagration of this case ends with a key suspect being gunned down after shooting and badly wounding Raquel. The work may not be done, but the mental refocusing it does to her ultimately may provide a level of healing that she needs. Watching her and Dee go down their own journeys of self-discovery elevates this book above a mere mystery or crime saga.

THOSE WHO ARE GONE is a first-rate novel and one of the crowing achievements of Laurie R. King’s career. In two short books, she has helped readers really get to know and appreciate such complex characters as Raquel and Dee. Storytelling like this should provide a long life for this series.