review of
Bruce Hale's The Malted Falcon
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 25, 2012

I recently acquired 3 bks whose titles & plots are take-offs of previously existing bks: The Malted Falcon, Captains Outrageous, & Android Karenina. This called my attn to there now being, apparently, a whole genre of such bks. Yesterday, I got a copy of The Maltese Dog - thusly adding to the collection. Fully expecting these bks to be trashily derivative I've decided to read all 4 anyway & review them b/c I'm somewhat fascinated by the genre. Most, if not all, of them are kids bks.

The Malted Falcon is targeted to readers ages 8 to 12. The novel that it's a take-off of, Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, is not only a personal favorite but, also, obviously, aimed at adults (although not in an x-rated way). Since I think that Hammett's both a great story-teller & a great prose stylist I was curious about how Hale wd handle his take-off & I have to admit that I think he did a fairly good job of keeping it both non-kid-traumatizing & still wackily in the spirit of the original - at least in terms of the wisecracks.

The Malted Falcon begins:

"I love a mystery - any kind of mystery. Like, if the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more folks happy? And, if you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, why can't you pick your friend's nose?" (p vii)

I love that as a beginning! Not only does Hale frame it as a philosophical intro to the detective mind of his hero "Chet Gecko", but he playfully stimulates the etymological thinking. He implies that many people are ignorant & ends w/ a joking question. It sets the mood for what I think the best children's bks writers do: stimulate the minds of kids w/o necessarily threatening them, making it all playful.

Hale is full of puns that kids won't necessarily get but wch will help them appreciate them all the more as they learn their meaning. A character's name is "Dot Maytricks" (dot matrix, a type of printer - later revealed to 'really' by "Lili Pad"), another's is "Bert Umber" (burnt umber, the color: ""Sounds like a colorful character.""), "Zoomin' Mayta" (Zubin Mehta, the conductor). It goes on & on.

It was interesting for me to see how a kid's bk writer adapts adult mystery material by putting it into an Elementary School context - 'peopled' by non-human critters. Of course, the violence, slight as it is, is translated into low-level bullying & the like. Hale mimics & simplifies the mystery novel patois beautifully:

"I made to slip around him. Freddie blocked my path. I sized him up.

"He would never make the Rodent Hall of Fame. Freddie's bulging eyes flanked a nose that looked like it'd blow off with a stiff sneeze. His overbite concealed a chine so weak, the nose could've beaten it up.

"Freddie's skinny body twitched like a silkworm in a light socket. He looked familiar, but if we'd met before, I'd thankfully forgotten." (p 33)

All in all, I thought this was well-done &, no, I won't be reading more Chet Gecko stories - the "ages 8 to 12" thing is NOT for me. Still, I can safely say that this is 'kid-friendly' w/o being too stupid. ( )

Chet Gecko and his partner try to find a missing valentine and the winning ticket to a fantastic dessert. Gecko Mystery.