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Black by Gaslight by Nene Adams is a delightful, saucy, fast-paced Holmesian romantic adventure. Lady Evangeline St. Claire has the status and wealth to indulge her penchant for investigations – a penchant that brings her path across that of Rhiannon Moore, a woman whose personal misfortunes dragged her down from respectability to the life of a Whitechapel prostitute. And there is a murderer stalking the alleys of Whitechapel who has a particular animosity toward prostitutes. A rescue and a fleeting kiss in the dark—with St. Claire in disguise as a man—sets both their hearts on a collision course.

Black by Gaslight is solidly written (a level above what one sometimes finds in lesbian fiction, though it's not entirely without flaws) and solidly grounded not only in the history and atmosphere of Victorian London, but also in the genre that inspires its setting. (The only flaw in this grounding is a touch of “researcher’s disease” sometimes in the level of descriptive detail, or the tendency to explain things for the reader’s benefit that hardly need explaining in-story.) The Holmesian presence is felt not only in the model for St. Claire’s activities and abilities, but in an assortment of secondary characters who are transparent reflections of the Sherlock Holmes canon. The story has its own take on the identity and motivations of Jack the Ripper that allows St. Claire and Moore to have a central role in defeating him while allowing for the mystery to remain undisturbed for the public.

This is more of a thriller than a mystery, in the sense that the reader is pulled along behind the unfolding events rather than being encouraged to range ahead of them. Encounters of deadly peril come thick and fast, literally throwing the two women into each other’s arms on a regular basis until they fight past a rather prolonged period of self-denial and confess their attraction to each other. This was one point on which I felt there was some weakness in the story. The period when both women are burning with desire--yet tying themselves in knots to avoid expressing it for fear of scandalizing the other--is simultaneously lingered over with obsessive and repetitive detail, and drawn out to improbable lengths. (I could buy one or the other, but the combination began to pall.) The number of times they are thrown into titillating full-body contact on the excuse of being shot at or otherwise attacked seems a bit over the top, as if the deliciousness of the hurt/comfort motif was too much to resist. The romance is rather spicy: definitely not on the side of erotica, but dwelling on the women’s sexual activities more than the plot might otherwise require. (Sometimes flying in the face of other plot events. Their first serious make-out session occurs in a cab hurtling at speed across the city on the track of one of the villains, which did leave me thinking, “Oh really?”)

Both characters are well-drawn, having original histories and personalities that support their adventures, while leaving enough mystery for further exploration. The various flaws, if not entirely dismissible, didn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the story. Adams has created an intriguing and individual pair of protagonists and has a competent grasp of her setting and its genre context. I’m looking forward to seeing how her craft developed over the course of the four books featuring these characters. It’s unfortunate that the demise of P.D. Publishing has left the series orphaned for the moment. (I’ve managed to lay hands on one and three, but have balked so far at the second-hand prices I’ve seen for the others.)