Title: Good Night, Mr Holmes
Author: Carole Nelson Douglas
Rating:
4 stars out of 5Publisher: Tor
Copyright: 1990
Pages: 416
Keywords: mystery, historical
Reading period: 28–30 June, 2009
The first Irene Adler novel by Douglas, immediately preceding Good Morning, Irene,
which retells Conan Doyle's A Scandal in Bohemia from Irene and Nell's perspective.
We learn how the narrator Nell Huxleigh met Irene;
of Irene's early years in London when she struggles with her singing career
and develops a sideline as an investigator;
how she meets Godfrey Norton, her future husband;
how they despise each other at first, in the best rom-com tradition;
her operatic triumphs in Warsaw that draw her to the attention
of the future King of Bohemia;
their falling out;
and, finally, the events of “A Scandal in Bohemia”.
These books are a lot of fun.
Douglas uses the prim Nell and the independent Irene
to explore women's roles in society,
while also playing homage to Sherlock Holmes.