The Mysterious and Stunning Irene Adler, - [a sort of lady super-spy from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels and, now, the movies]...

She is like a lush red rose...

Irene is an adventuress and femme fatale played by the absolutely gorgeous Rachel Mc Adams in the Sherlock Holmes movies featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, but in the original books she is not a main character, and, sadly, she disappears from sight in the second Sherlock Holmes movie, "Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows'.  Too, too BAD, --- the darling and sly Irene was given a swift and terrible case of T.B. by the dastardly and brilliant Professor Moriarty.  I certainly hope that Irene will re-appear in the next Sherlock Holmes movies...

Irene is Sherlock's erstwhile love, as Watson says: "Why is the only woman you've ever been interested in a world class criminal?"  Of course, it WOULD be that way...  Sherlock is a very odd duck...  And, to his dismay and secret delight Irene outsmarts and out plays him at every turn.  She is obviously a live-in-the-fast-lane sort of girl.  Irene is an American, born in New Jersey.  In the 1st movie she says she divorced her husband: "He was boring, and he snored!...", but he WAS, ---oh, yes, --- rich!  And, she comes to visit Sherlock wearing a fabulous diamond around her neck, - a gift, or, most likely, stolen, from a maharajah.  She brings him the delicious nuts that he favors and special olives. She casually cracks some walnuts with her bare hands, like the Godfather, a feat which would take a tremendous, TREMENDOUS amount of strength in the arms and fingers!

As I said, in Arthur Conan Doyle's books, Irene is not a main character.  In fact, she was featured in only one of his novels, - "A Scandal In Bohemia". in which he said of her, [quote] : "She has a soul of steel.  The face of the most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men."...  But, Irene fired the author's fan's imagination; they LOVED her!...  Author Carole Nelson Douglas gave Irene her own set of novels and in them she shows that she is very bit as brilliant and singular as Sherlock; she is a modern woman in Victorian times.  The novels are full of color and loaded with detail.  The delightful Irene, is positively, POSITIVELY fascinating!...