[LISTENED TO: Summer 2017] Danger Goes Berserk
After how much we loved Brixton Brothers Books 1 through 3 we were excited to get to Book #4 (which appears to be the final book since it has been six years, despite what was hinted at in the end).
However, there is no audio book! No Arte Johnson guiding us through the mysteries of these teenage sleuths. No one to say Rick (pause) Jerk.
Gasp.
So we did the next best thing. S. read it to us on a long car ride. This is second best because it’s exhausting for S. to read out loud for that long and to have the constant complaints of “can you turn it up” which makes me laugh every time one of the kids says it.
It was great to be involved with Steve Brixton and his chum Dana once again.
The detectives are back (in Steve’s hilarious new office) and there are two cases to look into. One is about surfing.
The other is about… gym shorts.
Someone has been stealing Brody Owen’s gym shorts. Brody even paid Steve to take the case. But Steve doesn’t want to take it. Both because it’s stupid and because he’s got more important, bigger cases to deal with.
Turns out that Steve’s acquaintance Danimal (from the previous book) had a case for Steve. A local surf gang called the Berserkers stole his longboard. The don’t even use long boards (it helps if you know surf talk, which I don’t really). Plus, the Berserkers have taken over a whole section of the beach and won’t let anyone near it.
They also wear crazy masks and do midnight beach parties.
If Steve is to help Danimal, it means of course he and Dana have to go undercover as surfers. Neither of them surf, naturally, but that doesn’t stop Steve. It would stop Dana, but it doesn’t, because Dana is willing to help (mostly). Steve knows all he knows about surfing from utterly outdated resources, so that’s pretty much all hilarious–especially when he shows up in a hot pink wetsuit.
The Berserkers prove to be a lot more intimidating than one might think. But they are motivated beyond the obvious dislike for longboards.
Danger strikes Steve and Dana right from the start when they are almost run over by a speeding car. Surely it must be connected. But how?
Steve naturally thinks that his case is the most important one, but the police are not interested in it. They have much bigger things to worry about–like pirates stealing cargo ships with Lamborghinis aboard. A whole smuggling ring has attacked the seaport–that’s much more important than a surfboard.
Steve sighs and says he will work the smuggling case too if the police will just take the surfboard case seriously and arrest the Berserkers. The police say whatever, and Steve gets to work.
Steve never seems to worry about the dangers of these bigger cases. He also loves to used the Bailey Brither’s techniques for tracking goons and thugs. Like the mirrored glasses/walking backwards approach to tailing a suspect. And lots of surveillance.
But for Steve’s nonchalant attitude, the dangers are real. I mean, they got shot at in a previous book, what’s going to happen now? Getting abandoned on a ship in the ocean? Well, yes. Because scary surfers are one thing, but international smuggling pirates is something else entirely. When it is revealed how they are all connected, it’s pretty mind-blowing.
But there’s also tons and tons of humor. Like how Steve is recognized from his terrible photo in the paper–a recurring joke that pops up at the end. And how Dana just doesn’t want to give up on the Case of the Missing Gym Shorts (which Steve refuses to take).
This even gets Dana to skim the Bailey Brothers Handbook! “I’ve been trying to get you to read the handbook forever.”
The solution to that one is pretty clever as well, even if “sometimes the sleuthing is more exciting than the solving.” There’s also the amusing absence of Dana’s girlfriend Dana
For a while, Dana’s girlfriend, whose name was also Dana, had forced him to read a series of books about wizarding, with covers that were all battle axes and wood nymphs and angry-looking dwarves. It was terrible.
The final lines of the book promise so much more. A letter from Steve’s “girlfriend” Claire (who is currently long distance) and A Message from a Maniac. In italics, which means it’s supposed to be the next book.
Mac Barnett has since gone on to write so many great books, and several new series. He may be done with Steve and his chum. But I hope he can get back to it some day, even if he has to hire a ghostwriter of his own.
And S. did an excellent job.
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