Humpty Dumpty Jr. Hardboiled Detective the Mystery of Merlin and the Gruesome Ghost

I finally had the chance to read The Mystery of Merlin and the Gruesome Ghost (Humpty Dumpty, Jr., Hardboiled Detective)and it was not quite the sequel I had hoped to find. What made The Case of the Fiendish Flapjack Flop (Humpty Dumpty Jr., Hard Boiled Detective)a fun read was the focus on fairy tale characters and lots of humor.

This second novel has Humpty's investigating a mysterious ghost that has hurt his client's father at Merlin's Institute for the Knowledge of Everything. The beginning starts out with the same kind of fun old style detective movie introduction as the first book, which gave me hope. However, we quickly lose momentum. Humpty goes undercover at the school as a janitor and Merlin enrolls Rat as a student thinking he is the next King Arthur.

While many fairy tale mysteries employ characters from other literature successfully, this one flopped. I cannot help but think that the authors were perhaps thinking of another early chapter series that has been working the Merlin/Mordred story line to a very successful financial gain. I think the authors would have had a much more successful series had they stuck to nursery crimes that made the first book so much fun.