Death Goes for a Swim

It was really a most exciting day for Miss Hildegarde Withers, schoolteacher extraordinaire. Taking her class to the New York Aquarium, she first helps to apprehend a pickpocket. Then she discovers that her hatpin has gone missing and a full-scale search is launched. And once the hatpin is found, something else is discovered… a man’s corpse floating in the penguin pool!

This looks like foul play, and unless you can come up with a theory involving homicidal penguins, then the group of human suspects conveniently assembled nearby will have to do. Turns out they were all playing a complicated game of ring-around-the-rosy and it’s difficult to prove just what happened. Luckily for Miss Withers, Inspector Piper is on the case and he allows Miss Withers to make her own most unorthodox investigation.

Who Ruined Roger Rabbit?

I’m a very big fan of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It’s one of the greatest movies of all time in my book – the visual effects are astounding, even to this day, and it has a love for classic animation and old-time Hollywood that makes it a real pleasure to watch. It also brought characters like Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse to the screen together for the first time. And in the midst of all this, the movie manages to be a legitimate mystery with a solid, satisfactory ending. And so I finally decided to acquaint myself with the book that inspired the film version, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf.

Naturally, because I love the film as much as I do, the book would have a tough act to follow. But I decided to keep an open mind and try to enjoy the ride. Like the movie, the book stars Eddie Valiant, a hardboiled, cynical P.I. He is hired by Roger Rabbit to investigate the DeGreasy brothers. They are the heads of a large cartoon syndicate and have Roger under contract, playing second fiddle to one Baby Herman. But when he signed the contract, Roger was promised his own strip. The DeGreasys now deny ever offering him his own strip and refuse to let him go or sell him off to another syndicate, despite the interest shown in his talents.