The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline (Enola Holmes, #5)

The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline is a mystery novel for younger readers by the American writer Nancy Springer, published in 2009. It is the fifth book about Enola Holmes.

Enola has been searching for her absent mother for some time, and making personal connections is difficult for her. She sees little of her brother Sherlock, and the people in her life are few and far between. The closest thing she has to family is her landlady, Mrs Tupper, who is nearly deaf, cannot cook anything edible and is, to Enola, entirely endearing.

The novel begins when Enola comes home and finds that Mrs Tupper has been kidnapped. The questions that follow are who would take her and why, and the answers run further than the obvious ones: Florence Nightingale turns out to have something to do with the case, and there is a great deal more to the homely Mrs Tupper than Enola had known.

Enola puts everything she has at risk to get her landlady back, and the investigation is personal in a way her earlier cases were not, because for once the person who has been taken is someone she loves.