The creator of Fireman Small offers an equally diminutive gumshoe on the trail of a slippery thief. When every banana in town disappears overnight, baffled police turn to determined Detective Small—depicted in Yee’s cartoon illustrations as a brown-skinned, serious-looking lad in the requisite fedora and trench coat—to solve the case. Bunches of clues and a chase scene later, Small has made the collar—or has he? A loose end leads to further investigation, and one final clue in the shop of ice-cream entrepreneur Folsom Fox. Featuring plenty of visual jokes (including a cameo from the Man in the Yellow Hat) and a narrative written in sprightly verse, the caper is sure to peel right off the shelf. (Picture book. 6-8)
