Do you really need another adaptation of Sherlock Holmes? Yes, you do and it’s the Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer!
I bought The Case of the Missing Marquess, the first in the series for my daughter, but gave it a read for myself since I absolutely loved the Netflix adaptation. It was a quick and easy read, landing somewhere around 250 pages. A day’s read for most adults.
Enola Holmes is the fourteen-year-old younger sister to Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. Being born so late and unexpectedly in life and causing much gossip, she and her brothers have next to no contact with each other. This allows the reader to fathom her existence in the world created by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Enola is delightful, intelligent, and resourceful, sharing in the talents of her brothers while still being independent of them. She herself is eccentric, like her Sherlock, but for a much different reason. She and her mother both balked at the standards of time for women and young ladies.
Despite having little to do with her brothers, she contacts them when her mother goes missing. Both Sherlock and Mycroft decide she simply left, though Sherlock tries to ascertain her whereabouts throughout the book. Ultimately, it is Enonla’s own knowledge of the female world that helps her find clues Sherlock could never.
When Enola Holmes, sister to the detective Sherlock Holmes, discovers her mother has disappeared, she quickly embarks on a journey to London in search of her. But nothing can prepare her for what awaits. Because when she arrives, she finds herself involved in the kidnapping of a young marquess, fleeing murderous villains, and trying to elude her shrewd older brothers–all while attempting to piece together clues to her mother’s strange disappearance. Amid all the mayhem, will Enola be able to decode the necessary clues and find her mother?
