Tourquai

January 10, 2011
The pseudonymous Davys's third crime spoof to feature stuffed animals who behave just like humans (after Lanceheim) might have benefited from characters the reader can care more about as well as more humor. Insp. Falcon Ècu and his partner, Anna Lynx, accompany Mollisan Town's Supt. Larry Bloodhound to a crime scene in Tourquai, where Oswald Vulture's head has been sliced off and apparently carried away by the evildoer. If Larry and his team find the missing head of the deeply disliked "finance vulture," it can be reattached and Oswald resurrected. The pace picks up after Philip Mouse, a PI pal of Larry's, begins sniffing around in what becomes a standard police procedural. Plush suspects include Jake Golden Retriever, an art forger working for slippery gallery owner Igor Panda; eccentric inventor Oleg Earwig; Oswald's society wife, Irina Flamingo; and Oswald's mistress, Jasmine Squirrel; but the "killer" is an eye-winking surprise.

January 1, 2011

The sloppy, binge-eating Inspector Bloodhound and his Odd Couple detective duo--Anna Lynx and Falcon Ecu--need to find Oswald Vulture's head. For Davys's third installment in the Mollison Town quartet (after Amberville and Lanceheim), the stuffed-animal world is again rocked by crime and deceit. The prominent venture capitalist Vulture has been found decapitated in a room with one exit, yet no animal has come in or out. With the seducing secretary Emanuelle Cobra, art thug Igor Panda, inventor Oleg Earwig, and mysterious Jasmine Squirrel all vying for top suspect, the crack team starts to fray at their (literal) seams. To complicate matters further, art forgeries, a high-scale prostitution ring, and a roving gambling casino are all carelessly tossed into the plot. In this third novel of a planned quartet, the pseudonymous Davys attempts to satirize humanity through the zoological cotton-stuffed figures, but this conceit adds little to the resurrection of overused stereotypes and scenarios from detective fiction. VERDICT While the whimsical idea of stuffed animals as characters may lean toward YA, this novel is at times intense and contains adult references. Recommended for adult fans of oddball detective fiction, but beware of the predictable plot.--Jennifer Funk, Southwestern Illinois Coll. Lib., Belleville

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2011
The Mollisan Town quartet, of which this is the third installment, is an uneven adventure. The basic conceitthat all the characters are stuffed animalsworked to wonderful effect in Amberville (2009), a mystery with metaphysical undertones. (Why would factories make stuffed animals when theyre destined to be destroyed?) But Lanceheim (2010) was a disappointment, a plodding religious allegory whose revelations were mundane. And now we have Tourquai, another mystery, in which a disliked, venture-capitalist vulture is beheaded while sitting at his desk. The policeLarry Bloodhound, Falcon cu, and Anna Lynxtry to determine who had the most to gain: sultry secretary Emanuelle Cobra, the mysterious Jasmine Squirrel, or Igor Panda, trafficker in forged paintings? There is still some pleasure in exploring the pseudonymous Davys world and pondering the peculiar biology of its denizens. But does using stuffed animals as characters make for a better book? In Amberville, it did. In Lanceheim, it didnt disguise a lack of invention. And here its mere upholstery on a moderately satisfying mystery. One wonders, mildly, whats in store for the finale, Yok.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)