Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Chicagoland Detective Agency: The Maltese Mummy by Trina Robbins, illustrated by Tyler Page

It's been a while since I read the first Chicagoland mystery and I jumped right into this graphic novel without reviewing the first volume, so I felt a little lost, trying to remember characters etc.

Megan wants a good story for the school paper - and a chance to see her crush, music star Sun d'Arc. Bradley, the talking dog, wants a good mystery. Raf is suspicious of Sun, but not really interested. Megan has hopes of finally making friends with the mysterious new girl at school, but it turns out she just wants a chance to see Sun d'Arc with Megan's free tickets. Megan finally manages to find someone to go with her, only to discover that Sun isn't at all what she had expected...and maybe something mysterious is really going on, little though she wants to admit it.

I felt that this story was rather chaotic. Unless you've read the first volume, the odd...well, it's not quite friendship, between Raf, Megan, and Bradley is bewildering. Events seem to happen randomly and without motivation. I would have liked to see a more cohesive mystery and some additional character development.

Verdict: Adult fans of Robbins' work may enjoy this, and it had several moments of humor and horror, but I don't think tweens will find it very interesting. I'm going to try it out on some kids and see if any of them like it. Right now, I feel rather meh about this series.

ISBN: 9780761346159; Published April 2011 by Lerner; ARC provided by publisher at ALA Midwinter.

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