GOOD MORNING, IRENE

More adventures for Sherlock Holmes's nemesis Irene Norton, nÇe Adler: reported dead in the European press, she's living in Paris when a sailor is dragged from the Seine with an ornate S tattooed on his chest—the mate not only to a similar O-shaped tattoo Irene found on a man Bram Stoker pulled from the Thames seven years earlier, but to a third tattoo, an E, engraved on the breast of Louise Montpensier, an heiress Irene discovers in a hotel particulier shortly before she disappears from Paris. The plot linking the tattoos (a fourth, an N, is still to come) is redolent of the final chapter of The Sign of the Four, but this tale—which will take Irene and her amanuensis Penelope Huxleigh to Monaco to investigate a theft of sealing wax, defeat a male suspect in a duel, and outwit Holmes once again—is less Holmes- ridden than Irene's first resurrection (Good Night, Mr. Holmes); there's less frantic name-dropping here too (though Sarah Bernhardt will take a vital role) and more genuine mystery and detection. Arch and self-infatuated, but charming (as Nell might say) withal.