Eugene "Huge" Smalls, an eccentric but brilliant 12 year old boy who admires the detective stories of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, takes on a "case" of his own after his grandmother's nursing home is vandalized and he vows to find the guilty party. As Huge meanders through the 1980's landscape of suburban New Jersey, he misinterprets, misconstrues and misbehaves until the case is solved. Though the plot is sketchy at best, I liked Huge in the same way I liked Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. Huge reeks of confused adolescence as only a grown adult can understand. Unlike other teen detectives like Encyclopedia Brown or The Hardy Boys, Huge is a foul-mouthed, brash kid that I may have grown up with! Or maybe he was me. Either way, this is middle school for adults. Check catalog availability.
Submitted by Dan@Central