The Further Adventures of Jack Lime

By James Leck Kids Can Press 160 pp; $18.95

The Further Adventures of Jack Lime is a book about Jack Lime, a.k.a. Iona High’s private investigator. Jack Lime isn’t your normal teenager — he solves problems for his fellow acquaintances.

Being a private investigator isn’t easy; Jack takes a visit to the dark side while he attempts to solve very challenging cases in exchange for future favours, while avoiding bullies, principal Snit and school newspaper reporter KC Stone, who constantly bugs Jack for an interview.

The Further Adventures of Jack Lime describes three very interesting cases: the missing quarterback, the red envelope and the case of the comic book caper. The first case is about the school’s leading football player who mysteriously vanishes at random times. during the second case Jack makes an unfortunate encounter with Principal Snit, which lands him face first in detention while he has a time limit on his mystery. In the final case, Jack tries to assist poor, innocent Tyler Butt, who is missing his Captain Marvel No. 146, a very valuable comic book that someone stole during the first annual Iona High Comic-Con. Can Jack figure out all these cases before the times up?

Jack Lime’s 1950s PI style in a present-day setting creates a more interesting book. The author of this book is Canadian James Leck, who also wrote The Adventures of Jack Lime, the first book of this series. I think that you don’t need to read the first book to enjoy this one because the author doesn’t incorporate a lot from the first book into the second book. I think that this book and the mysteries were really interesting and that it’s a book that anyone can find enjoyable. Kids aged 10 to 15 who are into mysteries and adventure books would especially like this. Overall I really enjoyed the book except that the author doesn’t give the readers a chance to solve the cases for themselves.