Queen Teen Sleuth (Retro Version): New Enola Holmes Mystery Published

The third book in Edgar Award winner Nancy Springer's acclaimed Enola Holmes series, The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets: An Enola Holmes Mystery hit the shelves last week to rowsing revues.

In the first book of the series, The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery, Enola's mother disappears mysteriously on Enola's fourteenth birthday, leaving behind only a cryptic note for her daughter. Enola, who muses ironically that her name spelled backwards is "ALONE," deciphers her mother's parting gifts and realizes that her mother has embezzled a fortune from her deceased husband's estate under the noses of her male chauvinist sons Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes in order to gain freedom from the constraints of Victorian society for herself and, if she proves herself intellectually worthy, her daughter, Enola herself.

Avoiding a corseted boarding school and a subsequently arranged "proper marriage," Enola disguises herself in widow's weeds and escapes her brothers' clutches to set up a profitable business in London by representing herself as private secretary to one Doctor Rogatin, Perditorian, or finder of lost persons and ojects. In this guise she appears in the second book in the series, The Case of the Left-Handed Lady: An Enola Holmes Mystery

The current sequel, published January 31, puts Enola in great peril of being found out by Sherlock when Dr. Watson is kidnapped and a bizarre bouquet is delivered to his lodgings. Cypher sleuth Enola realizes that the species of flowers in the bouquet point to his death. But investigating Dr. Watson's disappearance may bring her into close contact with her very observant brother Sherlock, famed at seeing through clever disguises. Does Enola choose to costume herself as a ragged urchin, a boy of the London streets? Does she conceal herself as an unschooled and unwashed serving wench? Ah, no. She disguises herself as the one sort of person her brother would never expect Enola to be--a ravishing Victorian beauty. Can Enola, master of disguises, aliases, and cyphers carry it off to solve a mystery wherein even her famous brother fails? Find out in The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets: An Enola Holmes Mystery.

You can read my full review of the first book in this promising series here.