Synopsis (from
the publisher):
Meet Jack Lime, private investigator, who solves problems for his
fellow Iona High students. Sometimes he falls for the dames who hire
him, sometimes he falls in the river and sometimes he falls asleep
(he’s narcoleptic). But rest assured that whether he’s
tracking down a missing banana-seat bike or a kidnapped hamster, or
cracking open a trivia tournament betting ring, Lime will follow every
lead.
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The Adventures of Jack Lime
A Jack
Lime Mystery
James
Leck
Kids Can Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-55453-365-1 (1554533651)
ISBN-13: 978-1-55453-365-7 (9781554533657)
Publication Date: February 2010
List Price: $16.95
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Review: High
school student and private investigator Jack Lime investigates three
cases of teenage crime in James Leck's The Adventures of Jack Lime.
This line of work isn't all
glitz and glamour, that's for sure. Ninety-nine percent of the time,
it's dreary, dirty and dull. It's about rooting around in dumpsters and
eating a stale granola bar you found in your pocket for breakfast
instead of your grandma's buttermilk pancakes because you're waiting
for the morning paper to show up, and the kicker is, you're not going
to get to read it.
Jack Lime -- detective, private eye, gumshoe, last resort -- solves
problems for people. In "The Case of the Broken Lock", he looks into
the mysterious circumstances surrounding a missing bike; in "The Case
of the Daily Telegraph", he's nearly stumped by a nefarious blackmail
scheme; and in "The Case of the Big Dupe", he relates one of his first
big cases after arriving at Iona High, exposing a gambling ring.
Each of these entertaining cases is crafted in the style of hard-boiled
crime fiction, with lots of descriptive statements ("I woke up in a fog
as thick as a three-day-old cup of joe"), plenty of thugs
("Bucky smiled, started to turn away, then spun around and slammed his
fist into my gut like a runaway locomotive"), and beautiful girls to
trip him up ("I thought I could get hooked on a girl like her if I
wasn't careful, and I wasn't planning on being careful"). The mystery
plots are well developed, and, though featuring older high school
students and some PG-13 elements, are written at a slightly younger,
middle school level.
The one aspect that doesn't work is portraying Jack as a narcoleptic.
Not only is it unnecessary -- it doesn't add anything substantive to
his character, and it doesn't play into any of the plots in a
meaningful way -- it comes across as more intrusive than anything else.
Possibly intended as a way to portray Jack as flawed, though, in this
case, a character flaw would be certainly preferable to a physical one,
but more probably as a way to make Jack more sympathetic ... but to
whom -- other characters or the reader? -- isn't clear. Still, this
minor objection aside, Jack Lime is a likeable PI and his cases
credible and interesting; a sequel to The
Adventures of Jack Lime would be most welcome.
Special thanks to Raab Associates for providing an ARC of The Adventures of Jack Lime for this review.
Review Copyright © 2010 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read The Adventures of Jack Lime? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series …
The Adventures of Jack Lime
Kids Can Press (Hardcover), February 2010
ISBN-10: 1-55453-365-1 (1554533651)
ISBN-13: 978-1-55453-365-7 (9781554533657)
Omnimystery keywords for The Adventures of Jack Lime ...
Location(s) referenced: None.
