IRENE AT LARGE

With this third helping of corseted whimsy resurrecting Sherlock Holmes's old antagonist Irene Adler, Douglas (Good Night, Mr. Holmes; Good Morning Irene) finally seems to be getting the hang of weaving a new mystery together with strands of Holmesiana that include the background of Col. Sebastian Moran and the location of Dr. Watson's migrating war wound. After a prologue darkly hinting treachery in the 1880 Afghanistan campaign, Irene and her confidante Nell Huxleigh, still living in exile in Paris, stumble on, and tend to, a poisoned stranger who turns out to be Quentin Stanhope, an old acquaintance of both Nell's and Watsan's. Before he's properly recovered, though, Quentin vanishes, leaving behind a trail of deadly cobras evidently set to attack him, his late servant, and Watsan--a trail Irene is avid to follow. Though the details about romance and ladies' garb are as arch as ever, the hindsighted period cameos and tangential intrigues are mercifully kept in abeyance as Holmes and Irene do their most charming (if, in Holmes's case, unwitting) work together.