"He was as dirty and ill-clothed as any London street-arab..." There's the quote that lost this book its stars. I was mostly enjoying the story, though cringing at the constant implications that living like the Bedouin necessitates one being filthy and smelly. But the use of the pejorative "street-arab" broke the camel's back.

Granted, it was said by a character of the early 20th century - our heroine, Mary Russell, in fact - but the author's introduction failed to apologize for such an appalling bit of historicity.

Huck Finn uses the n word, and it's too late for Mark Twain to offer an author's note apologizing for the offense this historic accuracy brings. But it's not too late for Laurie R. King to note that "stree-arab" was a term in use at the time, a specifically racist but also classist term meant to characterize a filthy, impoverished, and perhaps homeless person as being as dirty as an Arab, but that its use today is appalling. Even such an apology would leave the disgust at the lifestyle of the Bedouin permeating the novel. No amount of dye on the skins of Holmes and Russell can cover this over.