Bad Bear Detectives: An Irving & Muktuk Story (review)

Irving and Muktuk, the ursine miscreants from Bad Bears in the Big City (BCCB 3/04), are shocked to find themselves suspects when a shipment of exotic blueberry muffins disappears from a dockside warehouse. Determined to clear their names, the duo turns gumshoe, trying to uncover the real criminals by following their trail. The scent leads the bear pair to the polar-bear enclosure in the very zoo where they live, where they find the muffins cleverly concealed; a taste test begins to jog Irving's and Muktuk's memories, and they realize they have in fact found the culprits: themselves ("Because we are bad bears," says Irving knowingly). The charming absurdity that Irving and Muktuk bring to their adventures makes for a highly offbeat but entertaining mystery; there's a tip of the fedora—a pair of which the bears steal in order to disguise themselves—to elements of the detective-story genre but plenty of allegiance to the pair's own literary tradition, including plenty of phrases ("We are not to be trusted") that will be familiar to readers of earlier outings. Jill Pinkwater balances her sly, sharp-edged draftsmanship for the bears with soft, blurry backgrounds and human figures, a contrast that downplays the subsidiary characters into obscurity and ensures the bears are unchallenged in their star turn. While this will be best appreciated by fans of the felonious pair's previous outings, even novices will snicker at the doofus detectives and the mystery so loopy it loops back on itself.