“The Red-Headed League” Is A Sherlock Holmes Mystery That Can Laugh At Itself

I was a Mystery Kid, and every Mystery Kid knows how that goes. Only stories of remarkable children—Nancy Drew, Frank and Joe Hardy, Encyclopedia Brown—could enliven my unremarkable life. Recently I was marveling to my parents that so many Encyclopedia Brown stories had stayed with me, more than two decades after I read them. At least, little fragments had. In my memory, the premises had faded, so that all that remained was this potpourri of solutions you’d find in the back of the book: that "bookkeeper" is the only word in the English language with three pairs of double letters in consecutive order; that the blind violinist’s friend scammed him with frozen cubes of ginger ale; that anyone who fought in the First Battle of Bull Run couldn't have known there’d be a second. I've read whole history books and forgotten them, but I will always know that Jason was the kidnapper because "7891011" means "July August September October November." Ever a sucker for plucky heroines, I liked Encyclopedia’s sidekick Sally Kimball. She was pretty, athletic, always defending her friend from town bully Bugs Meany. Once she solved a mystery that stumped Encyclopedia, because she knew women’s shirts have buttons on the left. Encyclopedia couldn’t believe it. “That,” Sally said, “is because you are a boy.” There were too few plucky heroines in The Hardy Boys for my liking. The brothers leaned less on cleverness than on disregard for their own physical safety. They were always walloping bad guys, to great success, in the “solar plexus.” I didn’t even know what the solar plexus was. Nancy Drew, though, lived a life of the mind. Her style was understated: Sweet smiles, close observation. I envied the way everyone adored her: her lawyer dad, Carson; Hannah Gruen, the housekeeper; Nancy’s boyfriend Ned Nickerson, who was tall and handsome, and crucially not around very much. He never minded when Nancy canceled plans because she had a mystery to solve.

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