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Boy Detective Fails

by Joe Meno


In the twilight of a mysterious childhood full of wonder, Billy Argo, boy detective, is brokenhearted to find that his younger sister and crime-solving partner, Caroline, has committed suicide. Ten years later, Billy, age thirty, returns from an extended stay at St. Vitus' Hospital for the Mentally Ill to discover the world full of unimagi-nable strangeness: office buildings... (more)

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Liked It

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Jenn
  • Rated 4 stars

Nice! Pick it up for the cover, keep reading it for the entirely novel story telling. I've heard it compared to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night -time, but it's a helluva lot more interesting in its insistence on suspending your disbelief and accepting Meno's craftily created cosmos where no one thinks twice about children foiling dastardly evil-doers and aged villains live in half-way houses and attend villainous conventions. Alternately sad, sweet and silly.

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Didn’t Like It

John A
  • Rated 2 stars

Having grown up reading "Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective," it really stung to to like this book more. After all, it had so many thing going for it: the casual surrealism of magic realism, archetypal villains, sincere heroes, and a hairpiece factory. But, alas, the total was less than the sum of the parts, and the meandering prose and endless novelty made it feel like a dream: strange, illogical, and easily forgettable.

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Community:
  • Rated 3.894737 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 4 stars
 

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