Chapel Noir

Review 1: This, the fifth of Carole Nelson Douglas’s Irene Adler series. The author, now obviously comfortable with the character she has created has stepped well beyond the mere telling of a good tale. Chapel Noir tells us a great about the Victorian era daily life, dress, attitudes, behavior and fears. It is an exposes a wide divergence of sexual behavior in public and private life. (Bill Clinton could have said, “It has all been done before and will be done again”) It tells us a great deal about the Victorian attitude of men toward women and sometimes of women’s attitudes toward men. Finally, this is a psychological novel in the best Thomas Harris tradition (The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon). Reading Mr. Craft Ebing’s book Psychopathia Sexualis, Nell slams the book shut and exclaims, “Jack the Ripper is not legend, he is everywhere.” This is an entirely different Nell than the nieve parson’s daughter who Irene befriended in Goodnight Mr. Holmes.

The Godfrey family is still living in their apartment in Neuilly where they receive a visit from Inspector Le Villard with a demand that Irene accompany him back to Paris. Irene’s role in this is to act as a translator for Rose, a young prostitute who just found the butchered bodies of two of her friends in an exclusive Paris bordello. Irene and Nell accompany Inspector Le Villard to the scene of the crime where Irene carefully examines all available evidence while Nell draws the scene and takes detailed notes. The year was 1888. The consensus of all: Jack the Ripper has left London and set up business in Paris. The chief suspect is a man who calls himself Mr. Adam Eden. Nell gives away the secret: he is Bram Stoker.

Once again Baron Alphonse de Rothschild summons Irene. The Prince of Wales is present at the meeting and is acting as a cosponsor. The Baron is concerned that Europe’s Jews will be blamed for the murders. In past years that would be enough to start another European Pogrom. The Baron wants the killer caught.

Early in her investigation Irene finds an ally in another worker in the bordello. She goes by the name of Pink. Irene suspects Pink is a Pinkerton Agent. She knows way too much to be a mere sexual worker in the bordello. Victims are turning up all over Paris, all butchered.

Irene Nell and Bram Stoker visit the Paris Morgue where naked bodies are laid out for public viewing and identification. (I wonder what would happen if they would try this today?) During their visit they spot Sherlock Holmes, disguised as a French policeman, watching all the spectators.

Sherlock Holmes investigations are going nowhere. Irene, Nell and Pink are struggling to understand the mind of a madman. Nell comes to the conclusion that “The forces that created Jack the Ripper could spring from any culture.” Irene and Nell are taking a more modern approach to finding the killer. Their efforts are being directed in what we call today profiling. They are trying to understand the killer and the forces that drove and created him. The two women put all the information they have about the killer in an effort to find one man who fits. They find him. His name is Sherlock Holmes. Both the Irene and Holmes follow a number of false leads until the World Exhibition, held in Paris that year.

Ultimately they are quite correct that the ripper in Paris is the same ripper that operated in London. In this case he is not acting alone but as the leader of a pagan cult. In the confusion of a raid, the cult is largely dispersed but there is a high price to pay. Not only does the ripper escape but Nell disappears also.

Nell: “I am in a box. Oh dear God…! I will go mad. If I do not die of retching first. My hands reach out. Find limits again. I lie on some thick fabric. The dark is the shape of a box the length and width of my body and not much more. A coffin. I will go mad”

Reviewed by: Roger F Kellogg F.I.A., Originally appeared in The Gaslight Gazette