BILLY JO JIVE AND THE WALKIE TALKIE CAPER

Billy Jo Jive, the inner-city entry among easy-reading kid-detective series, bops his way through another mystery when Steam Boat Lewis, a Bugaloo Smacker, reports a missing walkie talkie. Billy Jo and female sidekick Sunset arrive at Steam Boat's fix-it shop to find the second walkie talkie missing and Steam Boat's pesty little girl cousins hanging round. Once more, the kids follow a false suspect. . . but instead of. . . Sneaker Snatcher Rug Cutter, the finger finally falls on the little girls, who haven't been getting enough attention from Steam Boat. Shearer keeps things moving briskly, but his plotting formula has become as tired as Ted Shearer's stock whoosh and speed lines. (And there are other problems with the pictures: the artist, less alert than Billy Jo, draws Steam Boat in sneakers though a key point in the story has him booted.)