Freddy the Detective by Walter Rollin Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Freddy Steps to the Fore, or Rats, Robbers, a Train, and a Trial A porcine Sherlock Holmes, a purloined train, a resourceful gang of resentful rats, an overly enjoyable animal jail, a pair of slovenly bank robbers, a murdered crow, and an entertaining trial (“a long and hard-fought legal battle”) featuring rooster judge, crow prosecutor, pig attorney, cat suspect, rat and mouse witnesses, animal jury (including a cow, a bear, a porcupine, and a spider), animal packed barn “courthouse,” inflammatory or revelatory testimony, overruled objections, manipulative speeches, and appeals to good old American democratic concepts like “No free-born American animal . . . can be convicted of a crime until he is proved guilty” and “You don’t have to answer any question if you feel that the answer would incriminate or degrade you.” The third Freddy the Pig book by Walter R. Brooks, Freddy the Detective (1932), has all that and more. The plot starts when Jinx the black cat tells Freddy about the disappearance of the toy train cherished by one of a pair of orphans (who never appear in the novel) adopted by the farming couple Mr. and Mrs. Bean. The pig, who has recently read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, decides that this mystery will be the first solved case in his brilliant new career as genius detective. And Jinx will help him. Soon Freddy finds himself inundated by cases and having to get a partner (the cow Mrs. Wiggins) and numerous small animal trainee assistants, who disconcert the farmer Mr. Bean by “shadowing” him as he works the farm. The novel features the virtues of the roughly two-dozen subsequent Freddy books, including-- *straight-faced whimsical animal facts, like “Like all ducks, she was very stubborn, and when she had made up her mind to anything, nothing could stop her.” *multiple sub-plots, here involving rats, robbers, and a jail. *amusing developments, like when a young rabbit gets Freddy’s attention and starts eating Mr. Bean’s verboten lettuce so as to get arrested and thrown in jail, which is rumored to be a fun place where the prisoners get to eat and play without having to work. *critical observations about human behavior, like, “I’m glad I’m not a man! How they ever manage to do anything or get anywhere in all these clumsy hot clothes I can’t imagine! Lords of creation, they call themselves! Humph, I’d rather be a pig any time.” *a strong moral compass, whereby people (like the city detective or bank robbers) who dislike and mistreat animals are bad, and people (like the local Sheriff and Mr. Bean) who like and respect animals are good. While the first two books in the series were travelogues (to Florida and the North Pole), this one occurs on or near the Bean farm. In this circumscribed setting, for the first time Freddy’s protean nature comes to the fore: scholar, detective, lawyer, jailer, and de facto leader of the farm animals (though not yet a poet or banker or newspaper pig!). Although in later Freddy books the Bean farm animals can talk with each other as well as with people, here they can only talk with each other and understand what people say to them without being able to say anything back. It’s a little clumsy, and you can see Brooks getting ready to abandon the limitation as Freddy nearly talks to the sheriff and to some robbers but then uses gestures to communicate instead, almost as if he could have talked to them but wanted to avoid surprising them. In later books, illustrator Kurt Wiese provides charming, vivid, and accurate pictures to accompany the text, without Disneyfying any of the animals. While those traits are also present here, he’s not as accurate as he is later in the series. For instance, the story says that Freddie disguises himself by donning a suit and applying a fake mustache sans beard, but the illustrations (including the cover picture) show him wearing a black beard sans mustache. Anyway, moments like when Freddy scolds Jinx make this book a lot of fun: Jinx started to walk across the floor, but Freddy stopped him. “Please don’t disturb anything,” he said, “until I have finished my investigation.” “Oh, I’m not disturbing anything. What’s the matter with you?” demanded the cat. “You’re disturbing the clues,” replied the pig testily. “All crimes have clues, and if you follow the clues, you find the criminal.” And moments like when the leader of the rats, Simon, expresses their point of view give the novel some depth: “But we have to live! Even the humble rats have to live… And what has Mr. Bean ever done for us? Set traps and mixed poison—that’s what he’s done for us! Driven us out of our comfortable homes! And you think we should be nice and kind and do things for him and say ‘pretty please’ just because he’s a man and owns this farm. Well, we’re sick of men. Men are all alike, selfish know-it-alls, and if you don’t do as they say—out you go!” View all my reviews
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Jefferson Peters
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