★★★★☆ Is it over now? I don't want it to be over!

The Case of the Disappearing Duchess

Nancy Springer

Nancy Springer's The Case of the Disappearing Duchess, brought the Enola Holmes mysteries to a close in 2010. As is often the case in a series, Disappearing Duchess has two plots. One is the plot of the entire series -- Enola's family drama: her abandonment by her mother, her flight from the tender guardianship of her brothers Sherlock and Mycroft, and her attempt at an independent, free life. This plot is brought to a close in Disappearing Duchess. The second plot is the particular mystery we are solving this time. As usual for self-styled Scientific Perditorian Enola this one is a missing person mystery, and the missing person is of course the titular disappearing duchess.

The most surprising thing about Disappearing Duchess is that Enola, Sherlock, and Mycroft must work together openly to find the duchess. Previously this has never happened because Enola didn't trust her brothers enough to risk her freedom by allowing them close to her.

Avid readers know that all-too-rare feeling of sorrow at reaching the end of a long book or series, knowing that it is over, and that it will never again be possible to read it for the first time. But is this really the end of Enola? The first six books of the series were written fairly quickly between 2006 and 2010. When you read Disappearing Duchess, you will be left in no doubt that Springer intended it as a conclusion. However, in 2020 the series acquired a new lease on life with the release of an Enola Holmes movie. Since then a story (Enola Holmes and the Boy in Buttons) and three additional novels have been published. I intend to read them, and hope that they will be as good as the first six.

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