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Rating: 
Summary: Great Read
Review: For inveterate readers of Holmesian pastiches, this will rank fairly low on the list, and it's certainly a disappointment after the previous installments in Douglas's otherwise fine Irene Adler series. The main plot element - Holmes meets Jack the Ripper - is a tired and overdone cliche. The book moves along too slowly and is overburdened with endless descriptions of clothing and other distractions. The plot devices seem overly contrived, and settings like the wax museum and the exposition seem gratuitous. And the "you will buy the sequel" cliffhanger ending feels like a ripoff.
Rating: 
Summary: A difficult but tantalizing read
Review: I have eagerly anticipated another Irene Adler book from Carole Nelson Douglas for several years now. I learned about "Chapel Noir" several months ago and eagerly rushed to the bookstore as soon as my copy arrived in the store. That said, I can admit I am a fan, albeit a slightly disappointed one. No, I do not mind that the book is darker than the previous ones in the series. It fits the story. I love the growth and development of the characteters, so no complaints there. I can even handle a cliffhanger as much as I personally detest them. I hate waiting at least a year for a resolution in books I read primarily for entertainment. What I didn't like was the constant change of narrator in the book. Yes, I understand it was necessary, considering the inevitable cliffhanger. Yes, I even like Pink (or whatever you want to call her). But although she is vastly different in personality from Nell, her narrative voice is not sufficiently different. I kept having to keep the narrative clues straight as to who was speaking, since the voices were all too similar. It's not that I was confused, but I had to work too hard to read the book just to keep the narrators straight, let alone the clues and story developments. It was horrific when I had to put the book down for a break and come back and figure out who was speaking before I could become immersed in the story. The narrative clues are dense, actually, and also slowed the flow of the story. It was as if the editor knew the voices were not different enough so we were peppered with narrative clues, not mystery clues, since the conceit had to be maintained to obtain the ending. Still, Irene is back, and so is Nell. If you love them, reread the other books and venture onto this one. If you haven't read the former books, please start with them. Nell is a jewel, a Dr. Watson and an Archie Goodwin rolled all into a Victorian woman. Don't miss her. I love her. I just wish the book had been more about her again than Irene. Irene is wonderful, but Nell is the true heroine. Nell humanizes Irene's perfections. If you also enjoy Holmes tempered with a strong female character, I highly recommend Laurie R. King's "The Beekeeper's Apprentice."
Rating: 
Summary: A cheap ploy to sell a sequel !!
Review: I have never read an Irene Adler novel and so was intriqued by the idea of a Victorian female detective. I bought this to read on a long flight. To make this short - don't waste your money. After slogging through some of the most rambling, cumbersome prose I can imagine, waiting for all the threads to be joined, the book simply ends in mid-story! This was one of the most blatent ploys I have ever seen to get you to buy another book in this series. I found this so insulting that I would not buy another one of this authors books simply as a form of protest.
Rating:
Summary: Huge disappointment
Review: I loved the previous Irene Adler books and bought them as gifts for people, so I was seriously disappointed when I read this one. I would never buy it for anyone. I am dismayed by an author and a publisher who would sell a book that is incomplete and ends with a cliffhanger. Who needs the aggravation? Furthermore, there is no pleasure in reading the book - it is tough slogging the whole way. If I wanted to put that much effort into my leisure reading, I'd get a physics textbook or something equally interesting. At least I'd be learning something.
Rating:
Summary: And then there was Pink...
Review: I was incredibly disapointed with Carole Nelson Douglas' new Irene Adler mystery, 'Chapel Noir'. This is the 5th in what used to be a first-rate mystery/adventure series tied in with the Sherlock Holmes characters.
'Chapel Noir' has Irene Adler and Nell pursuing the infamous Jack The Ripper of 1889 in what could have been a potentialy thrilling mystery, but instead we are subjected to 450 pages of endless 'girl talk'! As a bonus, Nelson Douglas adds a character of a reformed American prostitute in Paris, who prefers to go by the anachronistic name of 'Pink'. This character appears so unauthentic and bogus, Douglas must have intended readers to be reminded of the current rock star 'Pink' of the same name! Even more annoying, Pink joins the two female characters in this constant chattering that always keeps the mystery from ever begining! Why?! Because 'Chapel Noir' even at 450 pages, is only the first half of the 'adventure'! This story continues in the sequel 'Chapel Rouge', which is why Douglas gave us three clucking female slueths instead of the usual two!
Go back and re-read Carole Nelson Douglas's previous Irene Adler novels, which were all either good and even terrific. In particular, look for the titles 'Irene At Large' and 'Irene's Last Waltz' which are among the very best of Holmes era mysteries anywhere.
As for 'Chapel Noir' don't waste your time!
Rating:
Summary: perfect suspense
Review: I was very disappointed with this novel, as I have really enjoyed all the previous Irene Adler books by CND (though I don't read the cat books.) It was much more grisly than the previous books. It took a long time to plow through, and the switches to journals other than Nell's in some chapters were often confusing. I finally finished it last night, only to find that it didn't really end-you have to wait until the next book to find the resolution. I was annoyed. I wish I had read some of the other warnings from reviewers.
Rating:
Summary: Jack the Ripper in Paris with a female detective in pursuit
Review: Irene Adler is the only female adversary to outwit Sherlock Holmes and she may have stolen his heart as well. Carol Nelson Douglas has taken the brief outline of Irene Adler in the Sherlock Holmes adventure A Scandal In Bohemia and fleshed it out into a marvelous sleuth of her own design. She has created her own series of books with Irene Adler as a 19th century detective with a feminist flair. Adler's latest two-part adventure, Chapel Noir and Castle Rouge, is told through a series of journal entries by her female companion Penelope Huxleigh. Additional chapters are supposedly taken from notes written by a prostitute called Pink and sections of a mysterious yellow book of anonymous authorship. This multiple "authorship" allows Douglas to present her story from different perspectives. And what a story! In Chapel Noir Adler is called on by Baron de Alphonse Rothschild to investigate a particularly bloody murder in a Parisian bordello. Before long Jack the Ripper is the suspect and Sherlock Holmes (sans Watson) has come to Paris to investigate. As the plot moves on, more famous historical figures are drawn in either as suspects or allies. 470 pages later I found, instead of the end, that this is the first of a two part story. A rollicking adventure that continues for another 470 pages in Castle Rouge. Lots of fun if you can stand the gruesome aspects of the crimes.
Rating:
Summary: Vive Madame Irene!
Review: Irene Adler, heroine of "Good Night, Mr. Holmes" and other novels, returns in this great addition to the series. Sherlock Holmes fans will recall that Holmes always referred to her as "the Woman" after she outwits him in "A Scandal in Bohemia". Irene, along with her sidekick Nell and her husband Godfrey, ably carries her own series. I heartily recommend all of the Irene Adler books to any lover of mysteries. "Chapel Noir" finds Irene and Nell embroiled in a hunt for a demented killer. The year is 1889. Jack the Ripper--aka "Saucy Jack"--prowled the streets of London's East End only the previous fall. No arrests were ever made in the Ripper murders. Could the Ripper have moved his operation to Paris? With the able assistance of Pink, a young American woman, Irene and Nell pursue the killer through the streets and catacombs of Paris. I have only one quibble with this book: because the story will be continued in the next volume, the cliff-hanger ending leaves the reader hanging. But this unsatisfying climax only whets the reader's appetite for more.
Rating:
Summary: And then there was Pink...
Review: This book sat on my shelf for two years because I bought it by mistake. Well, the mistake was not reading it sooner! It's great! I am disappointed in my fellow readers who obviously haven't checked the FACTS of the book. #1. The suspect in the story (read it yourself, Mac!) is a genuine Jack-the-Ripper suspect, and considered by many to actually BE the Ripper. He had murdered his wife and was an escapee (or more likely let go) from a madhouse. #2. The Ripper murders have always been claimed to show some religious or occult symbol, authors vary on what. Me, the ol' Raven is like The Great Randi, skeptic unparalleled, who points out that any pattern is only possible if you connect the dots that way. #3. Pink. Yes, that was her nickname, and her name as given in the book is her real one. But no one remembers her by that name, since she is world-famous under a pseudonym. I won't say what it was, but if I did all of you would slap your forehead and say "Oh, yeah! I've heard of her!" You probably think Mark Twain was his real name too. As for the story ending midstream, do you really want an 800 page book? There's just too much to tell in one story. So read Castle Rouge. It'll pay. Quoth the Raven...
Rating:
Summary: A different kind of Irene Adler book - spoilers
Review: Wow. I got this book at 4:00 PM, and read it straight through. It was wonderful, but a warning - it is darker than the other Irene Adler mysteries have been, and has a "cliff-hanger" ending that frustrated me no end. Don't expect a cozy mystery, or easy answers. It is wonderful to see Nell grow and change from the naive spinster. Oh, don't worry, she still sticks to her moral ideals, but in this outing, she shows her strength. She even faces down Sherlock Holmes! Irene and Nell are called in when two "ladies of the evening" are found murdered at a French brothel. They are pulled into a dark world of madness that they have never visualized. Along with a "soiled dove" named Pink, they search out a monstrous killer. Is it Jack the Ripper, come over from London, or is there a even more horrifying explanation? Let's hope that Carole Nelson Douglas gets the sequel out soon, before her readers die of the suspence.
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