Castle Rouge. Carole Nelson Douglas

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.