THE TATTOOED POTATO AND OTHER CLUES

"Timothy Hay sounds like a fake name," remarks the heroine—oddly, since hers is Dickory Dock, her brother is Donald Dock, and others who make their appearance at and around the Greenwich Village row house where she works include rich collector Julius Panzpresser, fellow art student George Washington III, underworld lackey Shrimps Marinara, elusive artist Roy G. Bliv (to be found not in Who's Who but in the spectrum), three Eldon F. Zyzyskczuks (an exporter on 743 East 84th St., an importer on 734 West 84th St., and a forger who takes advantage of the mix-up in their credit cards—actually, all three are one and the same), and four detectives named Winkle (the blind man), Dinkel (the derelict), Finkel (the exterminator) and Hinkle (the hippy). This bizarre company performs its briskly choreographed masquerade in a series of manic EncyClopedia Brownish cases, set within the larger mystery involving two murdered blackmailers and the identity of Dickory's disguise-happy artist boss, Garson (a/k/a Inspector Noserag, which is almost Garson spelled backwards, and—in the guise of a tattooed sailor—Christina Rossetti), who either is or has murdered the genius Edgar Sonneborg. Strangely enough, simply by piling and tangling up ali the name games and disguises that seem at first just mechanically ludicrous, Raskin wears down your resistance, so that by the time everyone is happily united in jail you'll be laughing as inarticulately as the brain-damaged, one-eyed, deaf-mute, Isaac Bickerstaffe (formerly Frederick Schmaltz).