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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 vanish without reason, small animals turn up without their heads, and cruel villains ride city buses to complete their evil schemes.
Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy finds the companionship of two lonely, extraordinary children, Effie and Gus Mumford??one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, Billy treads from the unendurable boredom of a telemarketing job, stumbles into the awkward beauty of a desperate pickpocket named Penny Maple, and confronts the nearly impossible solution to the mystery of his sister's death. Along a path laden with hidden clues and codes that dare the reader to help Billy decipher the mysteries he encounters, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown.
Kirkus Reviews,June 15, 2006 *STARRED REVIEW* "What happens when a Hardy Boy grows up? Mood is everything here, and Meno tunes it like a master, even though such a task initially appears impossible. Billy Argo, resident boy detective of his small New Jersey burg, seems to have inherited the aura of brains, fearlessness and rigid moral compass that always served the likes of Encyclopedia Brown in such good stead. Billy solves crimes and foils villains without breaking a sweat, aided by younger sister Caroline and heavyset friend Fenton. Their successes are trumpeted in newspaper headlines straight out of kids' adventure books ('Boy Detective Solves Fatal Orphanage Arson'), prompting suspicions that what the author has in mind is a long and ironic riff on children's fiction. But the book takes a dark turn as the years pass. Billy continues solving crimes and generally being a prodigy ('College Now For Boy Detective'), but Caroline slips into depression and ultimately commits suicide. Her brother winds up in an asylum as a result, not re-entering the world until he's 30. This is the point at which Meno, a tricky postmodernist who likes to embed separate story capsules on blank pages and leave nonsense words in the margins, might be expected to throw the curtain back, showing that our hero was crazy all along, no crimes were solved and his whole life was a lie. Instead, the author gives Billy a gallery of rogues to combat and even sends him to investigate the Convocation of Evil at a local hotel ('Featured Panel: To Wear a Mask?'). Meno sets himself a complicated task, marooning his straight-arrow, pulp-fiction protagonist in a world uglier than the Bobbsey Twins ever faced but refusing to go for satire. Instead, the author takes his compulsive investigator at face value. A full-tilt collision of wish-fulfillment and unrequited desires that's thrilling, yet almost unbearably sad."
BOOKLIST, July 2006 *STARRED REVIEW* Comedic, imaginative, empathic, and romantic, Meno, whose diverse works of fiction include Hairstyles of the Damned (2004) and Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir (2005), is particularly attuned to the intensity of childhood and its lifelong resonance. In this cartoony and dreamlike novel, Billy Argo of Gotham, New Jersey, receives a True-Life Junior Detective Kit for his tenth birthday, and in no time, the gifted boy detective becomes front-page news as he thwarts comic-book villains with the help of his younger sister, Caroline. But Caroline...… (plus d'informations)
This review is posted on both my personal account and the account for Crossroads Public Library.
“The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes. But there is wonder in the attempt, knowing we are all destined to fall short, but forgoing reason and fear time and time again so deliberately.”
This is my favorite book, but I haven't read it in six years. Not for any deliberate reason, just that it's words were imprinted on my heart and I haven't needed to revisit them in a while. But now I'm a little older, a little closer in age to Billy, and feeling just as directionless and beaten by a world that can be cruel for no reason as he did. This book hurts - but there's hope at the end. ( )
I liked the idea better than the execution. I feel like Meno's experimentation with narrative distracts--but it was still an interesting and enjoyable read. ( )
3.5 stars. File this under "wringer". The most striking feature of this book is the emotional plot arc, which sets up high without clear referent, drops farther and faster than is comfortable (bearable?) and struggles in the depths, occasionally looking up at the sky. There are moments of real beauty, if you can stand getting to them. ( )
I had wanted this book to be so much. But, even despite the decoder ring, this book failed to charm me - I missed the point entirely. So much so, I found myself wondering if I found a way to use the decoder ring on the entire novel whether I might unlock the secret novel inside - one which was actually engaging. ( )
This book is a cross between The Venture Brothers and Chuck Palahniuk. Billy Argo was once a Boy Detective, solving every mystery with the help of his little sister Caroline and hapless best friend Fenton. But while he's away at college, Caroline commits suicide. Billy is devastated, attempts suicide himself, and ends up in an institution for 10 years. He is eventually released to live in a half-way house with many of the villains and thugs he foiled as a child. The reason for his sister's death still haunts him, but he's distracted by invisible body parts, disappearing heads, and falling in love.
The plot is crap. (SPOILERY from here on out.) Buildings disappear throughout--just vanish. No explanation. It's never important to anyone. It's just mentioned by the narrator periodically. A group of masked women sprays people with vanishing ink as revenge for falling in love. Snow falls from Billy's ceiling. There's a lake inexplicably full of completely non-decomposing bodies of young girls. No one seems curious as to how or why any of this happens. It just happens.
The dialog wavers between pretty good and utterly unrealistic. This is Penny's explanation for why she steals pink things from other women: "It started after my husband died. He was a Naval officer, you see. He was away for weeks, sometimes months at a time. When he died, he was in another country. He was decapitated in an automobile accident, and another woman--some woman I never met--was in the passenger seat holding his hand when it happened. The woman, she also died. But, but he...he was with another woman, in his final seconds, seconds he should have been thinking of..."Penny looks away her tiny face reddened with shame. "Those moments were taken, stolen from me. I don't know why I started. Afterwards I began stealing shopping bags, purses, anything, from women I didn't know, women who were total strangers to me." Let us be honest with ourselves. No one talks like that. But even worse, the entire scenario is so pat and twee and UGH. It's like the worst indie movie in the world.
The characters are the best part of this story, and kept me reading despite my increasing disdain for the "plot." Billy is a truly kind man, bewildered by the outside world and people's cruelty. Ellie Mumford's battle against scientific mediocrity, her physical clumsiness, her tortured relationship with her classmates, are excellent. Her brother Gus, who is also incredibly smart but who bullies his classmates and refuses to speak, is equally fantastic.
Overall, I enjoyed this book despite the pretention and the annoying surreal moments. I don't buy the explanation for Caroline's suicide, I don't get the point behind 2/3rds of the book, and I don't buy that adventures are over when you're an adult. But in the end, it's mostly well written and has a great energy to it. ( )
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 vanish without reason, small animals turn up without their heads, and cruel villains ride city buses to complete their evil schemes.
Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy finds the companionship of two lonely, extraordinary children, Effie and Gus Mumford??one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, Billy treads from the unendurable boredom of a telemarketing job, stumbles into the awkward beauty of a desperate pickpocket named Penny Maple, and confronts the nearly impossible solution to the mystery of his sister's death. Along a path laden with hidden clues and codes that dare the reader to help Billy decipher the mysteries he encounters, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown.
Kirkus Reviews,June 15, 2006 *STARRED REVIEW* "What happens when a Hardy Boy grows up? Mood is everything here, and Meno tunes it like a master, even though such a task initially appears impossible. Billy Argo, resident boy detective of his small New Jersey burg, seems to have inherited the aura of brains, fearlessness and rigid moral compass that always served the likes of Encyclopedia Brown in such good stead. Billy solves crimes and foils villains without breaking a sweat, aided by younger sister Caroline and heavyset friend Fenton. Their successes are trumpeted in newspaper headlines straight out of kids' adventure books ('Boy Detective Solves Fatal Orphanage Arson'), prompting suspicions that what the author has in mind is a long and ironic riff on children's fiction. But the book takes a dark turn as the years pass. Billy continues solving crimes and generally being a prodigy ('College Now For Boy Detective'), but Caroline slips into depression and ultimately commits suicide. Her brother winds up in an asylum as a result, not re-entering the world until he's 30. This is the point at which Meno, a tricky postmodernist who likes to embed separate story capsules on blank pages and leave nonsense words in the margins, might be expected to throw the curtain back, showing that our hero was crazy all along, no crimes were solved and his whole life was a lie. Instead, the author gives Billy a gallery of rogues to combat and even sends him to investigate the Convocation of Evil at a local hotel ('Featured Panel: To Wear a Mask?'). Meno sets himself a complicated task, marooning his straight-arrow, pulp-fiction protagonist in a world uglier than the Bobbsey Twins ever faced but refusing to go for satire. Instead, the author takes his compulsive investigator at face value. A full-tilt collision of wish-fulfillment and unrequited desires that's thrilling, yet almost unbearably sad."
BOOKLIST, July 2006 *STARRED REVIEW* Comedic, imaginative, empathic, and romantic, Meno, whose diverse works of fiction include Hairstyles of the Damned (2004) and Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir (2005), is particularly attuned to the intensity of childhood and its lifelong resonance. In this cartoony and dreamlike novel, Billy Argo of Gotham, New Jersey, receives a True-Life Junior Detective Kit for his tenth birthday, and in no time, the gifted boy detective becomes front-page news as he thwarts comic-book villains with the help of his younger sister, Caroline. But Caroline...
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“The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes. But there is wonder in the attempt, knowing we are all destined to fall short, but forgoing reason and fear time and time again so deliberately.”
This is my favorite book, but I haven't read it in six years. Not for any deliberate reason, just that it's words were imprinted on my heart and I haven't needed to revisit them in a while. But now I'm a little older, a little closer in age to Billy, and feeling just as directionless and beaten by a world that can be cruel for no reason as he did. This book hurts - but there's hope at the end. (