THE CLUE OF THE LINOLEUM LEDERHOSEN
M. T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales #2
by M. T. Anderson
illustrated by Kurt Cyrus
Harcourt Children's Books
ISBN-10: 0152054073
ISBN-13: 9780152054076
Ages 10-up
272 pages

Katie Mulligan is sick of life in Horror Hollow: the zombies, the vampires, the horrific practical jokes her mom and dad play --- it's all getting a little bit old. So when Katie's friend Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut, receives a coupon for a free dinner at the Moose Tongue Lodge and Resort, Katie jumps at the opportunity for a few days away from adventure. When Jasper, Katie, and their friend Lily arrive at Moose Tongue, though, they are surprised to find that most of the guests, like Katie and Jasper themselves, are the stars of adventure novel series past and present.

There are the Cutesy Dell twins (dead ringers for the Sweet Valley High girls), the clueless but oh-so-macho Manley Boys, and Eddie Wax (whose best friend is a horse named Stumpy). All the guests are thrown into turmoil, though, when the Hooper Quints, stars of a series of 1950s adventure novels, are kidnapped and held for ransom in a remote mountain cave. Jasper and Lily join a search party, but Katie, determined to avoid adventure, lounges around the pool with her new friends, the Cutesy Dell twins.

Like WHALES ON STILTS!, the first book in M. T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales series, THE CLUE OF THE LINOLEUM LEDERHOSEN delights in over-the-top language and outrageous situations: "Freedom, alas, was far away. As Jasper listened in consternation to the screams of distress, he felt a creeping little feeling. It was inside his nose. His hay fever. It was getting worse." The plot is convoluted and absurd (just as a good old-time mystery story should be), and the novel makes dozens of references to other books and movies (for example, the Hooper Quints have a nanny who's a musical nun. When the outfits she sews out of curtains wear out, she makes them a new set of lederhosen out of the kitchen linoleum).

With its glimpses into the narrator's back story and its tongue-in-cheek tone, Anderson's Thrilling Tales series is fast becoming the heir apparent to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Stay tuned --- in the next installment, Jasper Dash heads for the wilds…of Delaware.

   --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

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