Book Review: The Boy Detective Fails
December 12th, 2007 by timbotron
I heard about Joe Meno’s “The Boy Detective Fails” from the blog of Jackson Publick [the co-creator of the oh so amazing "Venture Brothers"].
In simple terms: Great story.
In complex terms: Billy Argo was the boy detective - famous and unbeatable, the constant subject of newspaper headlines. He solved the mysteries of haunted candy factories and amusement parks.
Now in his thirties and living in a psychiatric halfway-home, Billy’s life is on the decline. Recent odd happenings force him to resurrect his childhood vocation: Who is making entire buildings in the city disappear, who is the mysterious pickpocketing woman in pink, who is the man with no face, and - the biggest question of all - what happened to Billy’s sister Caroline?
What does a boy detective do when his arch enemies are now elderly and senile, and will he ever regain the lost purpose and enthusiasm of his youth? This is a beautiful story of loss and failure and the struggle to continue on.
Meno also adds wonderful emersive details to this story: coded messages that you, the reader, must decode and an awesome super-secret hidden story.
An entertaining and philosophical read.
January 10th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Thanks for publishing this, I was thinking it was a rehash of Mark Haddon’s ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel’