With illustrations in a noir-ish gray and a merciless hand with the double entendres, Cushman sets elephant-in-a-trench-coat Nick Trunk, Private Eye (“I work for peanuts”) on the track of diva Lola Gale’s missing marbles—her lucky marbles, that is. Nosing out numerous ostrich feathers, jars of peanut butter, and other clues, the stumpy sleuth collars the culprit at last (“The case was a tough nut to crack, but sticky crimes can be solved”), then shuffles off, leaving a trail of split shells behind. Some of the jokes may go over the heads of less cinematically experienced children, but the caper’s still a bagful of laughs for fans of Scott Nash’s Tuff Fluff: The Case of Duckie’s Missing Brain (p. 334), Margie Palatini’s Web Files, illustrated by Richard Egielski (2001), and similar hardboiled send-ups. (Picture book. 7-9)
