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Nov 18, 2014mmcbeth29 rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
This is book three in the Enola Holmes mystery series. In this installment, Dr. Watson has been kidnapped and sent to an insane asylum under a false name. No one can find him, but Enola is determined to be the best people finder in London and sets out to do what not even her brother Sherlock has succeeded at. In book two, I was terribly disappointed because Enola spent a lot of time whining about her self inflicted situation and was not using her vast intelligence to solve her problems. In this book, Enola pulls herself up by the bootstraps and says get over yourself. She then works to reinvent her false identity in order to continue to solve crimes while eluding her brothers. This book is shorter than the first two and is a faster read. Enola has not learned anything new to help in her "profession." She is still using the language of the flowers to solve her cases and she keeps burning her bridges. She has yet to mature as a character. Again, there is much to disturb the young reader. The vile descriptions of the people on the street, the excessive gruesomeness of the villain, and the men following her on the street because they think she is for sale. Enola is a fourteen year old girl who is abandoned by her mother and ends up living on her own in the slums. This book is advertized as a junior novel for grades 3-7! These topics are in no way appropriate for a 3rd grader or any elementary student for that matter. If this were a movie, it would be rated PG-13 at least. I would love to see this series reclassified as Young Adult. It is written at about the 7th grade reading level too. I would recommend this book for ages 12 and up. It is an interesting mystery for older readers.