THE CANARY TRAINER

Fresh (or stale) from his encounters with Freud (The Seven-Per- Cent Solution, 1974) and Jack the Ripper (The West End Horror, 1976), Sherlock Holmes comes up against the Phantom of the Opera, with mixed results. Disguised as a Norwegian violinist who replaces a performer at the Paris Opera who's been frightened off by the Phantom, Holmes is blackmailed by the woman, Irene Adler, into contracting to protect soprano Christine DaaÇ (who's so innocent that she believes the mysterious singing master who calls himself ``Nobody'' is the Angel of Music) from her ghostly patron. At first the Phantom seems intent on terrorizing everyone but La DaaÇ: her replacement as Faust's Marguerite, the oblivious incoming directors, even the new woman who tends the Grand Tier left boxes. No sooner has Holmes guessed at the Phantom's identity, though, than he spirits La DaaÇ off to the cavernous Opera basement for the requisite—and anticlimactic—finale. Should appeal to those fans (and there will be plenty) who can overlook the undistinguished stylistic pastiche—Holmes rather unwisely narrates this lost adventure himself—the footnotes that explain every last Holmesian reference, and the unfortunate poverty of the plot. (First printing of 50,000)