The wise-cracking fifth-grade sleuth who has already shown countless kids the way to reading success solves ten more crimes for his police-chief father and the kids of Idaville. Again the solutions are far from obvious but once you've looked them up in the back of the book you realize that the clues were there for the finding. Feminists like Sally, Encyclopedia's assistant, can only hope to be vindicated in a later volume (here Sally impotently stamps her foot at the culprit and says "Ooooh. . . I wish I could prove you're guilty!" only to have Encyclopedia answer "I can" and save the day once more), but the boys are already lining up for this one.