The Adventures of Jack Lime - Softcover

Leck, James

3.29

168 ratings by Goodreads

9781554533657: The Adventures of Jack Lime

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1554533651 ISBN 13: 9781554533657

Publisher: Kids Can Press, 2010

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Things might get rough, they might even get a little messy, but I was okay with rough and messy as long as I could shut the lid on this dirty case. 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. Readers will identify with this funny, cynical sleuth who has the makings of a top-notch PI, though his personal life frequently goes awry. In these three stand-alone detective stories, readers will immerse themselves in an offbeat fictional world populated with eccentric characters where everything is not as it seems.

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About the Author:

James Leck is a high school teacher who has spent a lot of time around teenagers, using their sardonic and offbeat voices in his writing. He is author of The Adventures of Jack Lime.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* At Iona High, Jack Lime is the guy you come to if you’ve got a problem: “Detective, private eye, gumshoe, last resort—you can call me whatever you like.” For a small price (he collects favors, never money) he’ll find out what needs finding out, even if his weakness for pretty faces often leads to some serious bruising of his own mug. This slim volume contains three cases. In the first, Jack susses out the whereabouts of a missing bike. In the second, he shakes down a hamster-napping and blackmail scheme. And in the final, he recounts his first case on the job, in which a magnificently dastardly plan teaches him a formative lesson in humility. All the touchstones that make for great noir are translated for kids: root beer floats instead of double bourbons, getting daddy to replace lost items instead of insurance scams, and a rigged quiz bowl instead of a fixed bout. The lingo that makes hard-boiled reading so much fun is here, but never schticky, and Leck knows that a great hero needs a great debilitating flaw: for Jack, it’s his narcolepsy that kicks in at the worst possible times. The cases are original where they need to be, and derivative when they should be. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel for a great detective story, but you do need a terrific sense of style. Jack Lime’s got it in spades. While set in high school, this kinda-campy book reads a little young, so middle-graders are the best bet. Grades 5-8. --Ian Chipman

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