The Adventures of Jack Lime

by James Leck
Kids Can Press  2010

A trio of hardboiled detective stories for the upper middle grade set.

Jack Lime is a kid people go to when they need to have problems solved.  Problems like cheating boyfriends and missing bikes and gambling rings and kidnapped... hamsters.

As with all detective stories, Lime has to wade his way through the sort of half-truths and double-crosses he's presented with, trying to reconcile what peopletell him with what he has to piece together through observation.  And as with all who meddle in the affairs of others there is a price, usually a punch to the face or the breadbasket.  Getting around the issue of doing a job for hire, Lime does what he does for the favors he can collect and use as barter down the road.  He's a lone wolf (orphaned, living with his grandmother), worldly (from big city LA to small town Iona),  who can usually solve the case but rarely gets the rewards he deserves.

Written in the first-person tough-guy voice of classic hardboiled fiction, Jack Lime is the closest I've seen to anyone grafting Raymond Chandler's Marlowe into children's literature.  Not that other's haven't tried, but those others all suffered from the strain of their own efforts to appear clever and arch.  Leck has managed to find just the right tone and though it is still an affectation of style it comes off as effortless and natural. 

And it's appropriately short.  I would have been happy for any one of these cases to be a book unto themselves, but that Leck gets three satisfying stories into 126 pages makes its case against those books that drag out a single drama for upwards of 275 pages.  Present the case, get on the job, land in some trouble, wiggle out of trouble and solve the case.  No need to get clever and drag things out endlessly.  The "crimes" are within the realm of possibility, if slightly exaggerated to match the genre, solved without the use of unbelievable talents, and doesn't pit whiz kids against idiot adults.  I think this is my new standard for what can and should be done with detective stories aimed at the older middle grade reader.

The Brain FInds a Leg

by Martin Chatterton
Peachtree Publishers 2009

It's a teen Holmes and Watson Down Under, with a transgendered Bond villain and animals run amok!

One day, in a fit of odd behavior, a pod of whales gang up and attack a whale watching boat on Farrago Bay, Australia killing all involved. No one knows why and the mystery was never solved.

Two years later, a new kid known as The Brain arrives with an odd demeanor about him and an uncanny ability to puzzle together facts at a glance. Before long he's buddied up with Sheldon, a local whose father owned the boat that was attacked by whales, and together they set off to solve a more recent spate of animal attacks. Playing Dr. Watson to The Brain's Holmes, Sheldon becomes integral in piecing together the mystery that not only will explain what happened to his father but how The Brain lost his parents to a freak accident while demonstrating a device that would increase the power and capacity of the human brain. Naturally there is a lone villain mastermind involved, as well as a surfer who is a spokesperson for a toothpaste company, and some truly odd behavior by the local fauna.

In a word, quirky.

This is the oddest thing I've come across in a while, and I have this itchiness in my brain that wonders if there isn't something cultural that I'm missing. If there wasn't a world full of books I wasn't dying to read I might be tempted to go back and figure out why this book sat funny with me. Not bad, but decidedly off.

Humpty Dumpty Jr: Hardboiled Detective

Case #1: The Case of the Fiendish Flapjack Flop
written by Nate Evans and Paul Hindman
illustrated by Vince Evans and Nate Evans
Sourcebooks / Jabberwocky 2008

A hardboiled detective series for the chapter book set is a welcome addition to the... wait. Aren't most chapter book series mysteries of one sort or another?

Yes, and with good reason. The mystery story has the opportunity to instantly engage a reader. It makes them feel smart as they puzzle through the clues and watch the hero attempt to solve the mystery before falling in the clutches of the evil villain. In this case, responding to a distress call HD finds Miss Patty Cake has been kidnapped, her secret recipes stolen. But before our hero can get on the case he is accosted by by a street urchin named Rat who thinks HD has kidnapped his morning meal ticket. They join an uneasy alliance, collect clues, and hit the case hard. With the Humpty Dumpty Jr series we have the added benefit of puns. Our hero is a good egg who can be counted on to crack the case and leave no yolk untouched.

There's a lot packed into this series, perhaps just a bit too much. Giving us characters straight from nursery rhymes is fine, if familiar (c.f. Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy for an adult version of this same sort of theme), and blending it with the hardboiled noir stories of Raymond Chandler set loose in New Yolk is fine, but when blended with mythological and other anthropomorphic animals surrounded by humans, well, it feels like one element too far. Does the precinct captain need to be a minotaur, and does the police chief need to be a rhino? And how do they fit in with the rest of the fairy tale characters like Little Jack Horner and the Queen of Hearts?

And while I can appreciated replacing guns of traditional detective stories with a magic egg beater and a magic pinwheel, the introduction of this element gives the book a fantasy turn that turns the whole mess runny. Kids who can appreciate the humor of the genre would just as easily understand water pistols filled different liquids that could have destructive effects to various characters. In fact, HD does resort to milk-filled balloons to fell a cake dragon into a soggy mess. But having the egg beater change things uncontrollably, or to have the pinwheel freeze people with the coolness of peppermint candy dilutes the hardboiled atmosphere. Some genres and settings just can't be blended successfully. Moonraker, anyone? Was there anything more ridiculous than Bond in space?

Recently the question was raised about introducing satire or parodies of genres that younger readers wouldn't likely to be familiar with. The argument was that without understanding the point of reference the point of the humor was lost. The counter argument is that the satire plants the seeds, that when readers are older they'll get the joke. Sort of like watching Bugs Bunny cartoons and not getting what Humphrey Bogart is doing begging for spare change until you see Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I would have to say that in order for the humor to be appreciated down the road the satire must be impeccably faithful. The goal is for the reader to one day have an "a ha!" moment that ties them back to their original experience with a fondness and a newer appreciation. If the derivative material is weak, when the reader comes to experience the source they come to feel betrayed.

Watch a kid's reaction when they encounter Lord of the Rings after Harry Potter and learn the subtle difference between homage and borrowing.

All of this to say that I think kids at the chapter book stage would truly enjoy a clever series that mirrors Phillip Marlowe or Sam Spade a little more closely. Kids love mysteries and that includes trying to solve them, unlike with HD Jr. where Rat withholds evidence until it's expedient for him to "suddenly remember" something new. The reader should be able to connect dots and make guesses beyond vague recollection of villains in the first few pages who might have escape prison but have to do extensive monologuing toward the end in order to explain their motives.

For readers sharp enough to catch the puns, and like a little more humor than an A to Z Mystery can deliver, but find The Time Warp Trio intimidating this just might do the trick.