Good Night Mr. Holmes

Review: Goodnight Mr. Holmes is an introduction to what has grown into a highly successful series of six novels. It is to Carole Nelson Douglas’s Irene Adler series what A Study in Scarlet is to the Holmes canon. It establishes Irene Adler’s identity as an opera star and as a highly talented private investigator. It describes Irene’s introduction to her Watson (Penelope Huxleigh) as well as her relationship with the King of Bohemia, her marriage to Godfrey Norton and her flight to Paris to avoid the agents of the king.

The story opens long before the events in London which are documented in SCAN. It begins with Irene’s befriending of Penelope Huxleigh, a parson’s daughter, out of work and searching for any means of supporting herself. The dangers of the streets of London are clearly depicted by Penelope’s near mugging by a street Arab. She is saved only by Irene’s intervention. It tells of her going to typewriter school and of her employment at “The Temple” as a typewriter girl. It is Penelope who introduces Irene to her future husband Godfrey. The poverty and lack of opportunity of all but a small upper social and privileged class of people is well documented. Employment, especially for women is limited to the most menial occupations with wages barely at the subsistence level. Also demonstrated is the fate of any woman either blackballed or even left without a letter of reference by her previous employer, for whatever reason.

The total domination of women is portrayed by the fate of Godfrey’s mother, who after leaving her husband, “Black Jack Norton” is trying to make a living writing. Her estranged husband successfully sues her for her wages leaving her to starve. (Any wonder why so many authors write under a Nom De Plume?)

The story begins long before the events in London, documented by A Scandal in Bohemia. The background Is in Prague, where Irene is giving concert and saying at the royal palace and describes her relationship with Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and one day King of Bohemia, henceforth to be called Willie. Willie has become infatuated with Irene, wants to keep her as his mistress and is more than willing to resort to force and imprisonment to do so. Irene and Penelope (Nell) escape from the continent posing as brother and sister, while being pursued by agents of the king. Such was the power of the royal class a mere century ago.

After Irene’s marriage to Godfrey and her subsequent flight to the continent, both she and her husband missed their train, which plunged off a cliff in the Italian Alps. Since their name was on the manifest, their death was assumed and their obituary published which finally freed them from the pursuit of the King of Bohemia and allowed them to establish their own identities and lifestyles. Godfrey and Irene’s flight to Paris to avoid the agents of the king is well documented. “The woman” turns out to be a far more complex, versatile and talented person than we would believe from A Scandal in Bohemia.

In the first of what will become many encounters Irene Adler is pitted against Sherlock Holmes in a search for The Zone of Diamonds, a belt of matching perfect diamonds worn by Marie Antoinette which she wore around her waist and which reached to the floor. Miss Adler’s employer is the American jeweler Mr. Charles Lewis Tiffany who has also employed Sherlock Holmes. This is a formidable challenge since the “Zone” has been missing since 1848. Irene succeeds where Holmes has given the search up as impossible.

Throughout the story we meet many historical figures that become common to the entire series. Among these are Mr. Anton Divorak, Abraham (Bram) and Florence Stoker, Charles Lewis Tiffany, Oscar Wilde and we even have an encounter with Mr. Jefferson Hope during his stint as a cab driver.

The stage is set. Many of the major characters are in place, so I will leave you until next month when we take a look at Good Morning Irene, tome #2 of the series. Until nest month I wish you good reading.

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