The Seven Per-Cent Solution; Another Scandal in Bohemia

So my Sherlock Holmes kick continues. Despite having about a billion (I could be exaggerating ever so slightly) library books with due dates stacked up, I pulled two books I own off the shelf to read. They were both very good, so I can't get too angry at myself for ignoring the others.

"The Seven Per-Cent Solution" by Nicholas Meyer is written in the style of a lost Watson epistle with Meyer serving as the editor. Watson comes clean, saying he lied in "The Final Problem" (in which Holmes and Moriarty are presumed dead after a fall from Reichenbach Falls) and "The Empty House" (in which Holmes returns to London and explains he faked his own death). Watson admits he made these stories up to cover up what was really going on at the time. He and Mycroft, Sherlock's brother, coerced Sherlock into following Moriarty to Vienna so Watson could get Sherlock to see Dr. Sigmund Freud. Watson is concerned over Sherlock's growing cocaine addiction, and implores Dr. Freud to cure him. Freud successfully treats Sherlock, and then asks a favor of him: he has a patient who cannot speak, and under hypnosis is giving very odd answers to questions about her identity. Sherlock questions the girl after Freud puts her under hypnosis again, and determines she is the wife of a recently deceased Baron whose son, the new Baron, is determined to get out of the way so he can take over his father's vast business interests. The book was a thrill ride at the end, complete with a rollicking train chase that had Holmes and the Baron dueling with swords on top of a car, going through tunnels. It was a great read.

Carole Nelson Douglas writes a series of books with Irene Adler as the main character. Irene, you will remember, was the woman who bested Holmes in "A Scandal in Bohemia". Afterwards, Holmes always refers to her as "the woman". In Douglas's fourth Irene Adler book, "Another Scandal in Bohemia", Irene and her trusty sidekick Nell are going back to Bohemia, to Prague, to help the King's new wife Clotilde, with a rather personal problem, as well as seeing if they can shed some light on the Golem that has been terrorizing the city. I love Nell, she is full of completely deadpan, dry humor that had me laughing out loud. Irene is charming, Douglas does an excellent job portraying these characters. The plot was a bit thick for me, but I did enjoy it, especially when Sherlock himself made a guest appearance. I didn't know this was the fourth one until I started reading it (and how I managed to buy the fourth without buying any of the others, I have no idea) and unfortunately my library doesn't own the first, so I have a friend getting one from another library for me. Looking forward to it!