Tank & Fizz – The Case of the Slime Stampede

Liam O'Donnell's The Case of the Slime Stampede is a monster detective story for 8 year olds that opens with a school car park being eaten.

The principal's car goes first. One minute it's parked, the next it's under a wobbling green blob the size of a bus.

The blobs are the school's cleaning slimes, and they've got out. They have no teeth. What they have is acid, which is excellent for getting dried troll snot off the drinking fountains and less excellent for climbing frames.

Our narrator is Fizz Marlow. Fourth grade, solves mysteries, and a goblin. He tells you that last bit straight away and checks you haven't got a problem with it.

His partner is Tank Wrenchlin, a troll who carries a tool belt everywhere and can fix anything you hand her.

The police arrest Mr Snag, the school caretaker, because he holds the keys to both the slime cages and the front door. Mr Snag is an ogre who talks about his slimes as though they're his children and worries about hurting their feelings. Fizz and Tank know it wasn't him. Now they have to prove it, with a detective telling them to keep their snouts out of it.

The monster world is the real fun. Every character is a different kind of creature and the book never stops to explain, so your reader picks it up as they go. Kobolds bark half their words. The desk sergeant is an octo-ettin, filing with two tentacles and typing with two more (and pouring sugar into her tea with a fifth).

Fizz narrates like a hard-boiled detective who is also nine, which is a very funny combination. Facts are like cookies to him. His tail does his thinking. And he keeps up a running argument with his own stomach about whether detective work beats a snack.

Anything to flag? A bit of school bullying. Two ogre brothers pin Fizz and Tank down and spin them head to toe in police tape, and a rich kobold called Rizzo gives the orders. It's a nuisance rather than something frightening.

Fizz and Tank take another case in The Case of the Tentacle Terror, which is in the library as well. Whole cargo ships start vanishing from the harbour overnight, and the monster in charge of that harbour happens to be Tank's mum.