Preview Bob Burke
With tongue firmly in cheek, Burke offers a send-up of both fairy tales and hard-boiled mysteries with this series opener that stars Harry Pigg, owner of the Third Pig Detective Agency and a celebrity after surviving the famous run-in with Mr. Wolf. Mistrustful when mysterious, smooth-talking businessman Mr. Aladdin asks him to locate a missing lamp, Mr. Pigg is strong-armed into accepting the case. A madcap adventure ensues, drawing in allusions to fairy tales on nearly every page, from Mr. Pigg’s nimble assistant, Jack Horner, to the geographical setting of Grimmtown. Burke seems to be shooting for the tone of 1940s detective stories in Mr. Pigg’s first-person voice (“that Red Riding Dame”), but one reference to Mr. Aladdin as “an oriental gentleman” feels jarringly unnecessary, particularly given that children will most likely not have the genre familiarity to put such an outdated, derogatory term in context. With discussion and explanation, though, this high-energy caper could make a useful addition to fractured-fairy-tale units. Pair this with titles in Michael Buckley’s The Sisters Grimm series and Bruce Hale’s Chet Gecko books. Grades 4-7. --Gillian Engberg
About the AuthorBob Burke lives in Ireland. This is his first novel.
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