Chapel Noir: A Novel of Suspense featuring Sherlock Holmes, Irene Adler, and Jack the Ripper

In 1889, opera diva and amateur investigator Irene Adler (the only woman ever to outwit Sherlock Holmes in the original Conan Doyle stories) is called on to investigate the slaughter of several prostitutes in a Parisian brothel. The house is frequented by British royals and not entirely unknown to Adler's wealthy patron. Adler sees that the French murders bear a disturbing resemblance to the still unsolved English crimes perpetrated by Jack the Ripper. Along with her companion Nell Huxleigh, who plays Dr. Watson to Adler's Holmes, and a mysterious young woman named Pink, whose intimate knowledge of sexual peccadilloes in high and low places horrifies Nell, Adler follows an unknown killer's bloody trail from the Arc de Triomphe to the catacombs and sewers of late-19th-century Paris. This is a lively historical thriller as well as a smart and faithful extension of the Holmes canon. Irene Adler justly deserves the spotlight Carole Nelson Douglas shines on her in this, her fifth outing. -- Jane Adams