The Adventuress: An Irene Adler Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

by Carole Nelson Douglas (Author) "The tragic and premature death of my friend Irene Adler was perhaps the most difficult circumstance of her life..." (more)
Key Phrases: consulting detective, inquiry agent, detective service, Monte Carlo, Sherlock Holmes, Madame Montpensier (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Douglas's first novel, Good Night, Mr. Holmes , was an impressive enough performance to demand an encore. Introducing Irene Adler--the only woman to dupe Sherlock Holmes--as a detective in her own right, however, the earlier work was a hard act to follow. Happily, spirited opera star and amateur sleuth Irene is up to the task in this new yarn, a rollicking and complex story brimming with Victorian atmosphere and details. Accompanied by her new husband, Godfrey Norton, and her faithful, highly sensible friend Penelope Huxleigh, Irene is in Paris, delightedly reading her obituaries after her presumed death in a railway accident, when she becomes involved in the case of a corpse that washes up on the shore of the Seine. In a coincidence acceptable to fans of Victorian stories, the body is frightfully similar to one Irene had once encountered chez Bram Stoker--it even has the same tattoo and also lacks most of the second finger on one hand. Irene's investigation takes her and others, including Sarah Bernhardt and Holmes himself, to the woman who is to become the first American princess of Monaco. Douglas makes inspired use of proper and sedate parson's daughter Penelope to chronicle the tale's wild escapades.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal
YA-- The setting is Paris in the 1890s. A sailor's body branded with a strange tattoo is pulled from the Seine and Irene Adler, the only woman who outwitted Sherlock Holmes, finds herself in the middle of an adventure that takes readers from Paris to the casinos of Monte Carlo. As Irene begins to unravel the mystery, she encounters Sarah Bernhardt and Alice Heine, the first blonde American princess of Monaco. An absorbing account of the life of a woman in fin de siecle France as well as a gripping detective story. --Roberta Lisker, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books (December 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765347156
• ISBN-13: 978-0765347152
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #167,744 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 2 in The Irene Adler Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars REVIEW THE BOOK, NOT THE LISTING, May 3, 2005

By	Crystal Katz (Colorado) - See all my reviews

Some people who use these review sites give low-star ratings to complain about some other matter than the content of the book. This book cover clearly lists the original title under the new one. You can't read it on the thumbnail, only on the enlarged cover image. Amazon should describe it as a "reissued edition" in the text, but that's not the book's fault. The Readers Guides explain why these new versions were retitled. Another publisher trespassed on the series titles, coming out with "Good Night, Irene," AFTER "Good Night, Mr. Holmes, "Good Morning, Irene," and "Irene at Large" were already out, causing a lot of confusion in distribution and even reviews. The retitled versions end the confusion. People who were misled by the thumbnail should write Amazon directly to rectify the listing. By the way, the book is very adventurous and amusing.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Irene seeks out tattooed chests to solve a mystery, December 3, 2005

By	F. Orion Pozo "Orion Pozo" (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Adventuress is the second in a series of mystery novels based on the career of Irene Adler Norton, a character from one of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. In Doyle's A Scandal In Bohemia Irene Adler outsmarts Holmes and wins his lasting admiration. Carol Nelson Douglas has taken this story as the basis for a series of delightful mystery novels that include Holmes and his companion Watson in mysteries that run parallel to the Holmes stories.

She has also created a framework for this continued series based on a current day historian Fiona Witherspoon who has supposedly discovered the diaries of Irene's companion Penelope "Nell" Huxleigh and unpublished memoirs of Holmes and Dr. Watson that she blends into the novels of the series.

This novel (which was originally published as Good Morning, Irene) takes an obscure reference in Doyle's story "The Sign of the Four" to Holmes going to France on a case involving a missing young woman as the basis for The Adventuress. Also worked into the plot is the 1889 marriage of Alice, Duchess of Richelieu to Prince Albert Grimaldi of Monaco. Anchored on these two points, Ms. Douglas spins a tale of lost treasure and a secret society of men marked with alphabetic tattoos who are drowning by jumping into rivers. The missing girl, Sarah Bernhardt, and Sherlock Holmes all help in solving the mystery of the drowning men and lost treasure.

The story is told through Nell's journals and her prudish country parson's daughter point of view. She is great at describing the details of Irene's lovely wardrobe and meticulously preserving the incidents of the case. A great read in a delightful series of novels. No prior knowledge of Sherlock Holmes is needed to enjoy this book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It may be a reissue but..., June 24, 2004

By A Customer

I would not call this book a fraud, it is a reissue with new cover art and a brand new name, however as Good Morning, Irene (the name before the reissue) is out of print, the only people it hurts are people who haven't read the summery well enough to realize that its not new. This is great for newbies to the series as the reissue means its far easier to access than it was previously. I spent about two weeks of my life (which I will never get back) searching for this book before the reissue and ended up buying it on Amazon (...) HOORAY for reissues!!! Its a great book with fantastic dynamic characters, however this book should not be read until the first in the series is read; Goodnight, Mr. Holmes. :)