The Case of the Missing Marquess

A rather short, fun story about Sherlock Holmes' wayward younger sister, Enola. When the Mother of Enola, Sherlock and Mycroft vanishes, the two adult brothers return to their countryside childhood home to discover that Enola is running wild amongst the roses with and has read a scandalously large amount, including the (horror of horrors) the essays of [a:Mary Wollstonecraft 1853305 Mary Wollstonecraft https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1228515449p2/1853305.jpg]. Suffice to say that the free thinking Enola is not about to be packed off to some boarding school but instead embarks on some adventures of her own.I've found that I'm sensitive to depictions of Sherlock Holmes. Many pastiches are unreadable to me because “That's just not Sherlock”. Mr Holmes is not the central character here, but except for the odd twinge, he seemed pretty acceptable to my Holmes-radar. Enola was very believable as a sister and was a very engaging character in her own right.I'll look forward to reading the next book in the series.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader as part of a quick takes post, the point of which is to catch up on my “To Write About” stack—emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness..
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This is a cute read for people who like the idea of Sherlock Holmes, but aren't that interested (or ready) in the real thing. Which may sound dismissive, but it's not supposed to be. I can easily see why the people behind the movie(s) latched onto this character. I can also easily see why they tweaked the content of this book and expanded it for the first movie (does the second book some/all of what they used to expand?).

I don't know that I'm going to go the distance with this series, but I can easily see going for one more dip in the pool.

Fast, amusing, and pretty clever. This look at Sherlock and Mycroft's little sister is a pleasant little book.