Part of Series
Dear Reader, The guy who usually writes these letters asked me to do it instead. Maybe he was having a bad writing day. Maybe he wanted me to play the sap for him. Or maybe he ran into Trouble with a capital T. Well, Trouble's in my business. I'm a dog. I'm a detective. The name's Bud Barkin. And this book is about the case I had involving a dame named Delilah Gorbish, whom I would call Trouble with a capital T except I've used that metaphor already, and the clown named Crusty Carmady whose calling card is a teakettle that he heaves through windows. Nice pair of birds. The mystery deepens with another character called the Big Fish, who isn't really a fish and who's addicted to the Home Shopping Network. Hey, I don't write 'em—I just solve 'em. Yours truly, Bud Barkin, P.E.
Author
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information. James Howe has written more than eighty books in the thirty-plus years he's been writing for young readers. It sometimes confuses people that the author of the humorous Bunnicula series also wrote the dark young adult novel, The Watcher, or such beginning reader series as Pinky and Rex and the E.B. White Read Aloud Award-winning Houndsley and Catina and its sequels. But from the beginning of his career (which came about somewhat by accident after asking himself what kind of vampire a rabbit might make), he has been most interested in letting his imagination take him in whatever direction it cared to. So far, his imagination has led him to picture books, such as I Wish I Were a Butterfly and Brontorina (about a dinosaur who dreams of being a ballerina), mysteries, poetry (in the upcoming Addie on the Inside), and fiction that deals with issues that matter deeply to him. He is especially proud of The Misfits, which inspired national No Name-Calling Week (www.nonamecallingweek.org) and its sequel Totally Joe. He does not know where his imagination will take him in the next thirty-plus years, but he is looking forward to finding out. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
