A review by ladylaetitia
The Sign of the Five by Ali Standish

5.0

 
Arthur Doyle returns to Baskerville Hall for his second term at the school. He is eager to see his friends - Jimmie, Irene, Pockets and Grover - and find out which specialty class he will be assigned to at the end of term. But soon after he arrives, Sherlock Holmes is taken mysteriously ill, followed quickly by two more professors and Arthur and his friends must determine who the culprit is with a leading suspect being the Green Knight whom Arthur suspects is  Jimmie’s father, Mr Moriarty.
Baskerville Hall is a delightfully different private school in an alternate steampunky fantasy version of Arthur Doyle’s childhood.  We have ghosts, and Frankenstein-like experiments, and mysterious poisonings.  Young readers will enjoy the adventures Arthur and his friends get into in solving the mystery of who poisoned the professors and why,  while older readers will enjoy that many of the characters’ names show up in Doyle’s real world fiction - Sherlock Holmes, Mrs Hudson, Dr Watson, Challenger, and, of course, the infamous villain Moriarty. I am enjoying this series and look forward to the next installment. Highly recommended