In Kilby’s illustrated children’s book, Hake Pollock, the Fish Stick Detective, solves a mystery by collecting unique facts about birds.

One summer’s day, Dame Jane Great-Dane seeks Hake’s immediate counsel, as the 100-carat Neil Diamond has gone missing. When her closest friends and jewelry connoisseurs—auctioneer Sir Humboldt Penn-Gwynn, a penguin; mine owner Sir Struthio Camelus, an ostrich; and gem and jewelry dealer Lady Javan Magpie, a magpie—visited for dinner, she went to obtain salad tongs from the waitstaff; the salad was spilled, and the diamond disappeared. Hake consults with the quirky, intelligent Dr. Bill Oddly, the ornithology chair of the local university, to get more insight into the three bird suspects. In this unique whodunit, Kilby presents intriguing facts, such as that Humboldt penguins live on rocky beaches, that Javan green magpies are part of the crow family and “have a reputation for stealing shiny things for their home,” and that ostriches can run 40 miles per hour. Penrod’s cartoon illustrations enrich the story with an offbeat comics-style layout with full-color characters and a grayscale background that’s consistent with the noir-detective theme. The artwork highlights relevant details of each of the key characters along the way and gets across a sense of movement in the static frames. However, although story’s concept is engaging, the ending is unsatisfying; the reader knows what happened, but it lacks a denouement to resolve things more neatly. A spread of Hake processing the events of the story might also have been useful for its young audience. Additionally, the text spells out details that are already clearly present in the images, which feels unnecessarily redundant. Nonetheless, this is an engaging picture-book blend of mystery and fable with fun wordplay and a sense of humor.

An often appealing and informative whodunit for young readers.