Fake Mustache

When a spree of bank robberies strikes his wacky town, Lenny Flem Jr. knows that his best friend Casper is the culprit. It's only with the aid of has-been TV star "Jodie O'Rodeo, the preteen cowgirl queen" that Lenny can bring Casper to his knees. The breathless stream of deliberate stupidity is admirably relentless and will gain the book fans among those becoming bored with Captain Underpants.

When a spree of bank robberies strikes the wacky town of Hairsprinkle, narrator Lenny Flem Jr. knows that his best friend Casper is the culprit. After all, the robber was wearing the same man-about-town suit Casper picked up at Chauncey’s Big & Small, Short & Tall, and the same Heidelberg Handlebar Number Seven mustache he bought at Sven’s Fair Price Store. As Casper’s criminal ambitions grow higher and higher, the pratfalls, slapstick, and gross jokes get correspondingly amped up, and it’s only with the aid of has-been TV star "Jodie O’Rodeo, the preteen cowgirl queen," her horse Soymilk, a fake-booger-shooting nasal gun, and an Ultra-Sticky-Stretchy Grabber Hand that Lenny can bring Casper (a.k.a. "billionaire hard-nosed businessman" Fako Mustacho and now the newly elected president of the United States) to his knees. Unlike the bone-deep daffiness of Daniel Pinkwater (who is referenced here), Angleberger’s humor is synthetic and indiscriminate, but the breathless stream of deliberate stupidity is admirably relentless and will gain the book fans among those becoming bored with Captain Underpants. Occasional black-and-white illustrations are appropriately goofy. roger sutton