Castle Rouge: An Irene Adler Novel

By Carole Nelson Douglas

Book Overview

IRENE ADLEROperatic diva. Femme fatale. Adventuress.And one of the world's most intriguing detectives.Before Caleb Carr, Anne Perry, and Laurie R. King, Carole Nelson Douglas gave readers a delightful look into Victoriana with one of the most impressive detective characters: Irene Adler, the only woman ever to have outwitted Sherlock Holmes, in "A Scandal in Bohemia." A charismatic performer and the intellectual equal (some would say superior) the men she encounters, Irene Adler is as much at home with a spyglass and revolver as with haute couture and gala balls.And her adventures are the stuff of legend. She has faced down sinister spies, thwarted plots against nations, spurned a monarch and lived to reap a sweet revenge... and now is on the hunt for one of the true monsters of all time-Jack the Ripper. It was she who led a most unlikely group of allies through the cellars and catacombs of 1889 Paris in the search and capture of the suspect at a horrific secret-cult ceremony held beneath the city. But disaster has scattered those allies and the Ripper has again escaped, this time from the custody of the Paris police. Sherlock Holmes has returned to London, and Watson, to reinvestigate the Whitechapel murders of the previous fall from an entirely new angle.Irene fears the Ripper will soon carve a bloody trail elsewhere and is eager to hunt this terror down. But terror has struck a little too close to home, for her own nearest and dearest are mysteriously missing - her companion/biographer, Nell Huxleigh, abducted in Paris and her barrister husband, Godfrey Norton, vanished in the wilds of Bohemia.What should Irene do first? Search for Nell, Godfrey, or the Ripper? Though Irene has many highly placed friends, the Baron de Rothschild, Sarah Bernhardt, and the Prince of Wales can only offer money and good will.For the actual pursuit, Irene must rely on an unreliable cohort, the American prostitute named Pink, who has proven to be someone with her own agenda, and Bram Stoker, the theatrical manager who was later to pen Dracula. The trail will lead back to Bohemia and on to new and bloodier atrocities before pursuers and prey reunite at a remote castle in Transylvania, where lthe Ripper is cornered and fully unveiled at last . . . a truly astounding yet chillingly logical answer to what the world has never known before:Who was Jack the Ripper?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031286941X
• ISBN13: 9780312869410
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Forge Books
• Length: 540 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 1.7" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Continuing to track Jack the Ripper

"Castle Rouge" is the second half of a very, very long novel that begins in "Chapel Noir." You can't read these separately. Just the same, if you're an Irene Adler fan, or are interested in who might really be Jack the Ripper, this two-book novel is one you don't want to miss. See review of "Chapel Noir."

A Victorian era mystery with a feminist point of view

Irene Adler is a character created by Arthur Conan Doyle and the only woman who ever outsmarted his famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. Carole Nelson Douglas has taken Irene and turned her into a detective with her own series of mystery novels. In this book, Castle Rouge, the action picks up from the previous volume Chapel Noir, with Irene seeking out the person or people who have perpetrated Jack the Ripper like murders in Paris a year after the Whitechapel murders in London. She is in desperate pursuit because it appears that her colleague Nell Huxleigh and her husband have been taken by the same culprits. But who are they? In this second volume Irene leaves Paris first for Prague and then a castle in Romania. Who is responsible for this international crime spree? Don't read the Selected Bibliography at the end of the book until you have finished it. You may find a spoiler of a clue there,A long tale that stretches across two large volumes, but the excitement never flags. Highly recommended - a feminist point of view on the Victorian era.

And the Castle ran red with blood...

This is the sequel to Chapel Noir, and a great book in and of itself. A interesting suspect for the Ripper. It leaves the reader to stare at the man's rather imposing picture and wonder "Could it have been?" Well...#1 He was alive and kicking during this time period (1888)#2 He is well-known for his hypnotic power over women#3 He is also well-known for his religious fanaticism, which would explain why most Ripperologists find religious or occult symbols in the murder patterns#4 He is now known to have been hopelessly insane#5 By train, as the map in the book shows, it's not that far from Russia to London#6 The murders DID NOT end with Mary Kelly, even in London, and it's easy to see a serial killer like the Ripper repeating himself elsewhere. Ted Bundy is a perfect example.And Pink did turn out to be someone you could rely on in a pinch, n'est c'est pas? Quoth the Raven...

And the Castle ran red with blood...

The sequel to Chapel Noir, which I bought instantly upon finishing the first is terriffic! What a twist on the Ripper! And to all of you nay-sayers out there, The Raven has some history.#1. I TOLD you Pink was famous under a pseudonym. She was the perfect companion for Irene in the race to save Nell.#2. This Ripper suspect was definately alive during said time period and proved himself to be both hopelessly insane and perverted sexually, as well as a religious fanatic. It would explain the Chi-Rho patterns that Irene makes of the murders, non? Or other authors of Ripperology's "Masonic Symbols".#3. It would explain where Bram Stoker got the setting and background for "Dracula".#4. Are you so foolish as to think that a serial killer like Jack-the-Ripper having got away with it once wouldn't do it again? Or even that Mary Kelly was his LAST victim? If so, you need to do some research.I liked these volumes so well, I bought the others I didn't have. So, Carole Douglas, my compliments. Quoth the Raven...

FASCINATING "take" on Jack the Ripper

This is the sequel to Chapel Noir, and I think the two novels are the only ones ever to set women instead of men on the trail of the world's first notorious slayer of women. And what women they are! Douglas revived opera singer Irene Adler from the Sherlock Holmes story (the only woman to outwit him) as an actress/singer moonlighting as a "private inquiry agent" to make ends meet. An ex-Pinkerton agent in the U.S., Irene turned to serious detection when forced out of her performing career. She is up to outwitting Mr. Holmes again . . . and again, and indeed, Holmes and Irene and her allies are pursuing the Ripper by separate paths that are destined to meet.Irene's allies include her loyal biographer, Nell Huxleigh, a prim Victorian parson's daughter thrown into a world of violent sex crimes with mind-expanding results, and a cheeky American girl found in a Paris brothel when the Ripper seems to have resurfaced in Paris a few months after the Whitechapel atrocities.This is a whole new arena for the Ripper, and the chase in Castle Rouge leads to points east featured earlier in the series, such as legend-haunted Prague, and even farther east into Transylvania. It's no surprise that Dracula author Bram Stoker is along for the ride as both supporter . . . and suspect.Not only does the book offer a whole new perspective on the Ripper murders, but a whole new and intriguing (though fictional) look at why Stoker wrote Dracula. Both old and new characters reveal surprises as they meet challenge after challenge in what becomes, like the end of the novel Dracula itself, a race to rescue some of their own who have fallen into lethal hands. The plot twists and turns, coils and recoils. Quite a ride. Hang on!This is a much darker, complex, and ambitious set of Adler books than Douglas' excellent earlier entries in the series (one was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), but it's based on historical fact beneath the fictional embellishments and provides a lot of insight on the thinking and even politics of the times. And even some of the series traditional humor shines through, as the very Victorian Nell encounters the worst of the real world in any age, and learns that she can face up to it. I must admit that she's a favorite character of mine, despite and maybe because of her socially inbred primness, and it's a pleasure to watch her grow. She may even be up to getting it on with dashing spy Quentin in future adventures. . . . Their relationship reminds me of the one between unconventional Victorian explorer/adventurer Richard Burton and his tradtional wife. Go, girl, go!