The Crown Affair: From the Files of a Hard-Boiled Detective

K-Gr 2—In this sequel to What Really Happened to Humpty?? (Charlesbridge, 2009), Detective Joe Dumpty is back on another case. Jack and Jill, as everyone knows, went up a hill, but as Jack fell down and broke his crown, someone went and snatched it! All that Joe Dumpty knows for sure is that one of Mother Gooseland's many Jacks is the culprit, and he rounds up the usual suspects to determine which of them is guilty. Ransom does a decent job introducing new characters and locations in Mother Gooseland, but the story does not have the same drive as the first one. The play on nursery rhymes is still clever, but the many puns involving eggs are overdone. The case itself is also not as interesting as its predecessor, with fewer clues to follow along as Joe Humpty mostly just goes from Jack to Jack until he finds the guilty person. Missteps aside, the illustrations are a step up from those in the previous book, as colors pop a bit more and outlines are sharper, creating a much better experience.