Another excerpt from my book, a musing about the first short story in the canon, the story of the woman, Irene Adler, and the scandal she almost caused.

A Scandal in Bohemia

Never
to return: That’s what we learn of Irene
Adler. She’s left England, never to
return. She has this one brilliant turn
in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” and then is gone – poof! – never to be seen
again. (Except in countless pastiches,
adaptations, and the fantasies of Sherlockians.) I shouldn’t make that a mere parenthesis,
though: it raises a big question: Why the fascination with this opera singer
from New Jersey?

New
Jersey? Yes, I know, how can that be
right? Here she is, the one woman who
can outsmart Sherlock Holmes, and she comes from New Jersey. One’s class snobbery rises – and perhaps that
is…