The Private Wife of Sherlock Holmes — Carole Nelson Douglas

IRENE ADLER . . . She's one of the most mysterious women in literature, an American and the only woman to have outwitted the world's greatest consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes.

ON FILM . . . You've seen Irene Adler as the fetchingly treacherous minx paired with Robert Downey Jr.'s in his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes as an action hero and human calculating machine.

You can see her as an apparently naked dominatrix in the BBC's modern take on a young, totally wired Sherlock Holmes.

Or you can read about her further adventures after she bested Holmes in "A Scandal in Bohemia," as written by New York Times Notable Book of the Year author Carole Nelson Douglas, author of the acclaimed Good Night,
Mr. Holmes and seven other novels following the adventures of Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes after “Scandal.”

This novella, “The Private Wife of Sherlock Holmes,” reports the pair's most recent and intriguing encounter in post-Jack the Ripper London, from Baker Street to a high society brothel. Shocking, my dear Holmes!

According to the critics from the New York Times, Publishers Weekly and daily newspapers, Irene Adler as “the dashing heroine in Carole Nelson Douglas's enchanting Victorian series” is "a Victorian age Ms. who blithely flouts conventions and triumphs in not one, but two careers -- opera diva and detective” . . . “unconventional, irreverent, at least a century before her time -- witty, competent, competitive, adventurous and like Holmes himself, fascinated with the curious and the criminal” . . . “the only woman Sherlock Holmes admired and indeed she lives up to the honor.”

REVIEWS:

“I think Carole Nelson Douglas has told the exact truth about Ms. Adler, and whenever I reread “A Scandal in Bohemia” that truth will be part of the story for me.” -- Chris Redmond, B.S.I., ASH in The Waterloo Sherlockian Letter.


"It's an amusing story, involving Holmes and Irene meeting the Prince of Wales in a house of ill repute." -- Peter E. Blau, B.S.I., editor, Scuttlebutt newsletter from the Spermaceti Press

“To capture the attention of the misogynistic and asexual Mr. Holmes, a woman would need to be quite remarkable, and Douglas's Irene is beyond remarkable." -- Mary Willis Walker in Mostly Murder

“Douglas has made Adler a superb detective and invented a perfectly delightful -- and perfectly puzzling -- series of cases for her.” -- Judy Alter in The Fort Worth Press

“Plenty of Sherlockian deductions, even from Sherlock Holmes himself, who plays a good role in all the intrigue. But it's Irene's show all the way, and highly entertaining. You won't be disappointed!” -- Mostly Murder