From Publishers Weekly
Victorian sometime-sleuth Irene Norton begins her fifth adventure, following Irene at Large , in a Paris fashion salon. On their first visit to Maison Worth, Irene and her companion, narrator Nell Huxleigh, are implored by the Queen of Bohemia to determine why Wilhelm, King of Bohemia (who once sought Irene as his mistress), is ignoring her. On their second visit they are asked to investigate the murder of one of the 1200 "bead-girls" who are employed by the designer. Shortly thereafter, Irene, her husband Godfrey and Nell are summoned to the estate of the Rothschilds and engaged to act as "eyes and ears" for the prominent banking family--in Bohemia. They begin their journey to Prague with Sherlock Holmes, who is investigating the bead-girl's death, only a half-step behind. They arrive in a city that is being haunted by the Golem, the mythical clay monster, and find the King in the clutches of a mysterious and beautiful woman named Tatyana. Gothic atmosphere and political intrigue abound as scenes shift from castle to graveyard. Like a master seamstress herself, Douglas threads these elements--and the flashing exchanges between Holmes and Norton, whose mutual antipathy is somewhat reduced here--into a credible and finely crafted whole.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Let lesser lights like Sherlock Holmes investigate the servile murders of two seamstresses at Charles Worth's exclusive Paris salon. There's choicer fare for Holmes's nemesis/love Irene Adler (Irene at Large, 1992, etc.): a charge from Worth's client Queen Clotilde of Bohemia to find out why her husband, the former lover who brought Irene into the Holmes canon, declines to consummate their marriage (``I believed I knew what that meant, in a general sense,'' observes Irene's demure amanuensis Nell Huxleigh), and an urgent request from Baron Alphonse Rothschild to look into the reports of a resurgent Golem of Prague. Irene's dealings with the King and the Golem (whose mysteries turn out to be unsurprisingly but logically connected to each other, and ultimately to the murders as well) bring her up against the King's treacherous Russian mistress Tatyana; Allegra Stanhope, the forthright (``An event of ghastly import has transpired! Clotilde is prostrate'') young niece of Nell's missing love Quentin; and, inevitably, Holmes himself, whom she battles to a chivalrous draw. Beneath the relentless infatuation with its intrepid heroine, this is the best--luckily, since it's also by far the longest--of Irene's adventures to date. --
Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
