★★★☆☆ Repudiation as well as homage

The Case of the Left-Handed Lady

Nancy Springer

The Case of the Left-Handed Lady is the second book in Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes series. It contrasts with Book 1, The Case of the Missing Marquess, in that that book took care of the business of introducing Enola Holmes (the sister of Sherlock Holmes) and her circumstances. So we now have room to tell a story about her. The mystery in Missing Marquess was perfunctory -- since these novels are short (250 pages in paperback), there was not room to both explain Enola and tell a substantial mystery story. Left-Handed Lady, in contrast, has room for the investigation of a mystery with some intricacy. I enjoyed it.

In addition to the mystery plots, the Enola Holmes books are period dramas about Victorian London. This contrasts with Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels and stories. Conan Doyle was writing of his own times in his own times, and does not remark on things that are unremarkable to him. Springer, in contrast, sounds much more like Charles Dickens, who although he was writing of his own times in his own times, saw much to remark on. Springer is, as you might expect, more specifically concerned with the plight of women in Victorian London than Dickens was, and her depiction of Victorian London is more explicitly political than Dickens' was. Nevertheless, it has a very Dickensian feel.

I noticed something that gave me a different perspective on the Enola Holmes books. Enola, on hearing some shop employees talk about spiritualism and mesmerism, remarks

I concealed my impatience with difficulty, for it was all jugglery and rot, of course; Mesmerism had been discredited years ago, along with dead bodies electrically “galvanised” into the appearance of life, incorporeal table-turning, spiritualist slate-writing and all sorts of nonsense masquerading as science and progress.

This is remarkable because later in life Conan Doyle was one of the main supporters of exactly this sort of jugglery and rot. On the strength of his Sherlock Holmes stories (which are, let us not forget, FICTION), Conan Doyle acquired the reputation of being a rigorous scientific investigator. He was not, and he was totally taken in by the spiritualist frauds of his time. (See Randi's Flim-Flam! for a detailed take-down of Conan Doyle's spiritualism.)

I am pretty sure that Springer knows this, and it suggested a quite different perspective on the Enola Holmes books. That is, I now suspect that Springer intends them not solely as homage to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, but also to some degree as repudiation of those stories and their male-centric viewpoint.

It is only fair to point out that Left-Handed Lady is ambiguous about mesmerism -- it plays a role in the plot in a way that suggests it's a real thing. That is not completely absurd. Mesmerism as discussed and practiced in Victorian England was mostly fraud. But hypnotism is, of course, a real thing, and along with their fraudulent nonsense, some of the early mesmerists were hypnotists. I am curious to see how these things are handled in the remaining books.

I would probably have given Left-Handed Lady a four-star rating if I were rating a kindle or print edition. However, I made the mistake of listening to the audiobook, narrated by Katherine Kellgren. In Kellgren's narration the male characters sound so exaggeratedly, sneerlingly evil as to be almost unlistenable. In fact, Kellgren somewhat spoils the story, because you immediately know, the first time a male character speaks, whether he's a Good Guy or a Bad Guy. (Quick summary -- the only decent-sounding male character is Dr John Watson.) I will not be listening to any more audio versions by Kellgren, and I have to dock my rating of the audiobook a star.

In summary -- Left-Handed Lady is a fun little mystery, but stay away from the audiobook.

Amazon review

Goodreads review