The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan
Nancy Springer
Philomel (Penguin), Sep 2008, $14.99
ISBN: 9780399247804

In 1889, Mycroft Holmes tells his younger brother Sherlock that he worries about their fourteen year old sister Enola who ran away from home when her mother deserted her. For eight months Enola has eluded her older siblings while also solving three cases.

Enola is earning a living as the 'assistant' to Scientific Perditorian Dr. Ragosotv, a figure head she made up as a front. Stopping at the London Ladies 'Lavatory she runs into Cecily Alistair, who she recently rescued (see The Case Of The Left-Handed Lady) chaperoned by two dominating aristocratic ladies. A desperate Cecily passes a pink fan to Enola after mouthing silently help. Cecily begins her rescue effort with a search for the 'Pink Tea' party among the fashionable magazines; unaware that Sherlock has been hired by Cecily's mother to save her daughter from an unwanted marriage arranged by her husband.

Although targeting older elementary school students, the Baker Street Irregulars will appreciate this well written entertaining Victorian investigative tale starring Sherlock Holmes smarter younger sister. Enola makes the tale as she eludes her well meaning older siblings while earning a living as a Scientific Perditorian. Whereas Mycroft plays a tertiary character trying to do what he feels is right for his teenage sister whose suffragette mom abandoned her and London, Sherlock plays a key secondary role in the case. Nancy Springer provides a fresh entry to the vast ever expanding Holmesian universe.

Harriet Klausner