Hardly has her school's "Showcase Your Pets Week" gotten underway with a set of student presentations ("Mr. Bunnykins from Birth to Death: A Young Rabbit's Struggle with Myxomatosis") when a rash of vanishing pets, including the local pet store's entire stock, draws budding detective Mina Snotbridge into a second investigation. This one leads down into the sewers and out to the town's outskirts where an animal sanctuary, a sewage treatment plant, and the newly opened Face Gunk cosmetics factory cluster. In the wake of sharp questions, telling clues, reluctant confessions, and the occasional spatter of vomit, multiple parties prove to be at fault t not, surprisingly, the most obvious suspect. Frequent monochrome illustrations (in which Mina and several other cast members are depicted with dark skin) supplement a narrative framed as casebook entries presented in short, well-leaded lines generously endowed with type of different size and weight. The level of humor is a bit elevated for the overall early chapter-book page design, but that only widens the potential audience for this hammy whodunit.

Gr 2-4 Mina Mistry, schoolgirl detective, is on the prowl for her classmates' missing pets. Her friend's hamster goes missing, then the pets of some other classmates disappear, and finally Mina discovers that the local pet store has been trashed. Could this be the work of irate animal activists protesting a new makeup store opening in town? Or could it be the makeup company stealing pets to test their products on? Mina and her friends will get to the bottom of iteven if that means sneaking into a sewer at four in the morning. Delightful, exaggerated, comic-style illustrations further the story. The language is mostly simple, with the occasional tough vocabulary word thrown in, and the humor is wacky and over the top. There are also subtle learning moments thrown in. VERDICT This will be enjoyed by fans of Anh Do's WeirdDo and those who appreciated the "Dork Diaries" and "Big Nate" series. Rachel Rosenberg, North Vancouver District Lib., BC