An Enola Holmes Mystery (Book #3): The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets

I really have been enjoying this mystery series involving the younger sister of Sherlock Holmes. In this book, the wonderful Dr. Watson has gone missing and Enola is on the case, solving it with ease before her dear brother Sherlock. Always an interesting and eventful read.

This was a very fun book to read. The character develops depth in both risky action, knowledge of flowers and social women's issues particular to her place and time, and in her emotional dedication to others. We get a very visual description of London at a particular time in history from the

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perspective of a girl with contemporary sensibilities, which is very interesting. Lots of action, spooky villans, and a great mystery combine for a great read!

Schools can recommend this book for students to complement historical studies of London or women's rights. Libraries can promote it as fun reading for middle readers/pre-teens, for those who like mysteries or Sherlock Holmes, and for girls seeking a female protagonist.

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When Enola's older brother's best friend disappears, Enola is determined to locate him even though the search may compromise her secret identity. The search for Dr. Watson leads our intrepid detective into London's steamy underside and finds her caught in a deranged plot twenty years in the making.

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The third in Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes mystery series, The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets includes all the mainstays of Enola's adventures: secret codes, cunning disguises, and a midnight dash across the rooftops. She worries about her absent mother and spars with her overbearing brothers Sherlock and Mycroft while maintaining her cover as Ivy Meshle, secretary to the fictitious Scientific Perditorian. The mystery in this particular installment seems a little forced and improbable, but will prove interesting to fans of the characters. Recommended for Middle School audiences.

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Love this series, lots of fun=)

I am really enjoying Enola's mysteries, and getting into more details about use of disguise was interesting.

Every one of these books gets better. I love the fact that the cases Enola takes on aren't things like missing bicycles or lost pets, but serious things. Fantastic.

The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets by Nancy Springer opens with John Watson going missing. Enola, meanwhile, feels she must close up shop because her brothers have gotten to close to finding her. She has no desire to let them run her life. But there's a new threat she needs to think about, the mad

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house, where women are being sent who don't play by Victorian rules.

Despite her own fears and joblessness, Enola decides to investigate Watson's disappearance. With the help of the disguise shop she knows Sherlock uses, she creates a new persona for herself and sets out to befriend Mrs. Watson.

The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets takes its name from a strange set of flowers delivered to Mrs. Watson's home upon the disappearance of her husband. Although Enola had a rather Bohemian childhood, she and her mother did enjoy sharing messages with the language of flowers. That shared hobby comes in handy here and she sees a message that her brother first misses.

In so many of the books set in Victorian times I've read the women are presented in a very narrow spectrum. They are prostitutes, aristocrats, maids or flower sellers. Enola's London has many more types of women, up and down the entire social ladder. These women make London seem more real and certainly more interesting.

And sometimes, more dangerous. Enola's adventures in this third volume are more dangerous than the typical tween mystery I've read. Her life is threatened. She gets hurt. Much of what happens to her is her own misjudgment. It's both shocking and refreshing to find a tween protagonist who is vulnerable.

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The only problem I have with this book is that I would have loved for it to last longer. Such a good story, once again and the details of the case were actually really chilling. I absolutely adore Enola. I can't wait to read more books in this series, what a find!

Fourteen-year-old Enola Holmes, disguised as a beautiful woman, finds clues in floral bouquets as she searches for the missing Doctor Watson, a companion of her famous older brother, Sherlock.

This was the best book in the series (until now). The mystery (Dr. Watson is missing) was very cleverly contrived and the resolution brilliant. I'm liking Enola more and more.

Enola Holmes, the younger sister of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes, has set herself up as a consulting detective. When she hears that Dr.Watson is missing, she dives into the investigation. Her only clue is that Mrs.Watson has been receiving strange bouquets.

Enola is a wonderful heroine, smart,

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resourceful, and gutsy. I love watching her skills develop and her relationship with Sherlock shift.

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I am so enjoying this series. Can’t wait for the film series with Millie Bobby Brown.

The construction of Enola's tale is, to me, beginning to show its cracks.
It requires Enola to interact with Sherlock and Dr. Watson a lot.
But since Enola is also hiding from Sherlock, it requires him to, basically, not notice things he should notice.

One can reimagine Sherlock Holmes in many ways,

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but noticing every detail is at the core of his personality. It strains credulity that the great Sherlock Holmes can't recognize his own sister.

Attention to detail also seems an issue overall. Enola, very conspicuously standing alone in the street, pretends to be looking in her pockets - but surely she wouldn't have pockets? She should be pretending to look in her reticule, her tiny purse where she would carry her calling cards. We already know the author knows about reticules, as one is mentioned in the first book.

And the plot also requires to Enola to do things so far out of the norm for a Victorian woman - particularly an aristocratic woman - that she would attract an incredible amount of attention, which seems counterproductive to the whole goal of being so invisible in London that Sherlock and Mycroft can't find her. Running - running! - down the street with her skirts hiked up and then sitting on the ground is, as the author pretty much acknowledges herself, more or less the definition of a Victorian madwoman.

Unabridged audiobook:
Well read, with good variations in tone, by Katherine Kellgren.

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Enola continues her clandestine career as Perditorian, a professional seeker of lost persons. In this case, it is Dr. Watson that she seeks. Still an engaging and intrepid teenager, she manages the task while adroitly avoiding her still seeking older brothers.

Enola is frozen with indecision, wondering what new identity to create for herself now that she thinks Sherlock might soon uncover "Ivy Meshle," when an article about the disappearance of Dr. John Watson catches her eye. No one, not even the famed detective Sherlock Holmes, knows what has happened

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to him. Although it puts her at risk of being captured by her older brothers, Enola knows she must do all she can to help Watson.

Readers know from the start that Watson has somehow been mistaken for someone else and committed to an insane asylum. The question is how it happened, and whether Enola, Sherlock, or both can find and free him.

I continue to read this series for the weird Holmes family dynamic, which may seem a little odd since they're almost never in the same room together. There's Enola, who desperately wants unambiguous displays of love and affection from her mother. She idolizes Sherlock but also fears what he and Mycroft would do if they tracked her down - she doesn't want to be trapped at boarding school and forced to live whatever sort of life they think is proper for a 14-year-old girl. There's Sherlock, who wants to be a good older brother but doesn't understand Enola at all (although maybe he's starting to?). And then there's Enola's mother, whose primary contact with Enola is through rare personal ads in the newspaper, written in code.

And also Mycroft, but he's barely had any on-page presence since the first book. I do think it's interesting that he apparently has a better grasp of his mother and Enola's shared code than Sherlock does, though.

The biggest problem with this series is that Springer's Sherlock is useless. He cannot track down his 14-year-old sister, despite having been in her presence multiple times. And in this particular book he can't even track down his long-time friend, Dr. Watson, supposedly because something as feminine as bouquets and flowers doesn't interest him enough for him to notice that there's something odd about one of the bouquets that was delivered to Mrs. Watson.

Granted, Enola got lucky. If one of the people involved had watched their mouth a little better, she'd have hit a dead end in her investigation. And she was super lucky that she wasn't caught while snooping and trying to get a little more information - I found that part to be incredibly difficult to believe.

This is a mystery series, and yet the mysteries continue to be weak and terrible. It's a shame, because I like Enola and find her strained family relationships to be interesting. I'll probably continue on because the books are quick reads and I really want to get to the point where Enola and Sherlock finally meet and talk to each other as themselves. (Which is what it would take for him to recognize her. I seriously cannot believe how unobservant this Sherlock is.)

Extras:

An excerpt from the next book, The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan.

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Not quite as good as the first two novels in the series but still a very strong entry. The story is about Watson and his wife and Enola's dysfunctional family. I have to agree with Sherlock that he wishes that Enola would trust him, but I can also understand why Enola can't. The real only problem

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with this novel is that it's just to short, if the story was expanded it would have been a strong four star book.

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It seems that Dr Watson finds himself mistakingly held in a mental hospital under a false name. Despite his pleas to be released his disappearance draws concerns from Sherlock. Enola disguises herself once again to help with locating the missing Dr Watson. She gets her first clue when she visits

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Mrs Watson and sees a particular floral bouquet which contained flowers with sinister meanings. She is successful with her efforts to assist her brothers in locating the Dr Watson.

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I am so enjoying this series. Can’t wait for the film series with Millie Bobby Brown.