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Summary
Summary
Steve Brixton is in retirement, and not even grand theft auto can bring him back for one last job. Period, the end, that's that. Right???
After finding out that his favorite author (and author of the definitive Bailey Brothers Guidebook ) was not the man Steve thought he was, the Brixton Brothers detective agency is officially out of business. Steve has a new job now: taking out the trash for five bucks a week.
But when he and his best chum Dana take a train trip down the California coast, he's caught up in a mystery that involves a fleet of stolen automobiles, a vanishing girl, and a phantom train car. For fans who want their Hardy Boys with a sprinkle of laugh-out-loud humor.
Author Notes
Mac Barnett is a New York Times bestselling author of books for children. His picture book Extra Yarn won a 2013 Caldecott Honor and the 2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. He also writes the Brixton Brothers series of mystery novels. He co-wrote Battle Bunny with Jon Scieszka which was a New York Times bestseller. Barnettt's book, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, illustrated by Jon Klassen, made the New York Times bestseller list in October 2014. It also won an E.B. White Read-Aloud Award 2015 in the picture book category.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Booklist Review
Newly retired from his short career as a detective, seventh-grader Steve Brixton even hauls his beloved Bailey Brothers mystery series out to the trash. He turns down one case, but the next mystery proves too tempting. Soon he is in hot pursuit of crooks on a train and in Mexico. In another fond but amusing send-up of Stratemeyer-era mystery series, Barnett finds time to poke fun at derivative fantasy books as well. A romantic interest adds another dimension to the earnest, intrepid, sometimes thick but always likable main character. An amusing addition to the Brixton Brothers series.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-Twelve-year-old Steve Brixton is a private investigator-and retired. After learning The Ghost Writer Secret, Mac Barnett's second title (2011) in the series, Steve has become disillusioned with his investigator role models and is determined to leave the world of sleuthing behind. However, Steve's reputation as a successful PI draws him back into a compelling mystery in It Happened on a Train (2011, both S & S), and he embarks on a dangerous train trip with his chum, Dana, and Claire, an interesting young lady. They confront baddies and evil intentions-and discover an interesting twist in a string of expensive car thefts. Arte Johnson provides a natural voice for Steve's engaging, often comical story. The wry, textured narration conveys the tale's tongue-in-check but serious undertones. While listeners may occasionally miss the rise and fall of a chapter or the shift of a scene that the visual text provides, they will quickly be drawn into the plot and find themselves pulling for Steve to escape the latest threat. An engaging listen.-Janie Pickett, Lackland ISD, San Antonio, TX (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The Brixton Brothers Detective Agency is no more.Kid gumshoe Steve Brixton (who actually doesn't have a brother, he just picked the name because it mirrors his beloved Bailey Brothers detective stories) has, at the ripe old age of 12, retired from the detecting game. He became disenchanted upon discovering, during his last adventure (Ghostwriter Secret, 2010), that the author of those inspiring books was actually a criminal mastermind. So Steve's given up his agency, and now his best chum Dana is spending entirely too much time with Other Dana, his girlfriend. Little does Steve know that signing up for the Model U.N. with Dana and Other Dana will place him on a train rocketing toward detecting destiny!When meeting a mysterious young lady onboard gets Steve invited into the mysterious last car on the Sunset Coastliner, Steve and Dana (but not Other Dana) find themselves invited to protect Mr. Vanderdraak's new, vintage motor car from serial car thieves! Can Steve solve the case? More importantly, can he go more than five minutes without getting trapped somewhere? Barnett's sly and often silly Hardy Boy parody chugs along with plenty of laughs and enough honest-to-gosh mystery to please any lover of boy detective fiction. Rex's black-and-white pencils (which also parody the Hardy tales) are still a fine match for the goofiness.Mention of the next adventure at mystery's close will make Brixton fans smile. (Humorous mystery. 10-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
CHAPTER I THE END IT WAS WEDNESDAY EVENING, a.k.a. trash night. Steve Brixton, seventh grader, formerly of the Brixton Brothers Detective Agency, plodded along his driveway, dragging a maroon bin behind him. The bin's wheels rumbled and popped as they rolled over pebbles on the blacktop. This week the Brixton family's bin was very full. The lid would not close tightly; it bounced up and down, making an irregular, slow clapping sound. And the trash was heavy--Steve could feel the can's weight in his elbow, and he kept switching the arm he used to drag it: right, then left, and back again. He sighed. Tonight was a particularly difficult trash night, and that's because the garbage bin contained fifty-nine shiny, red-backed books: a complete set of the Bailey Brothers Mysteries, a series of detective novels that until a week and a half ago had been Steve's favorite books of all time. Steve pulled the bin down off the curb. It hit the street hard, and its lid bounced open like a clam's shell, revealing the can's contents. Steve stood underneath a streetlamp. Its orange bulb flickered and hummed, even though the sun was just now setting and there was still plenty of light in the sky. There they were, neatly stacked in a cardboard box atop a week's worth of kitchen scraps and dental floss: Bailey Brothers #1 to #58, and of course The Bailey Brothers' Detective Handbook , which was jam-packed with Shawn and Kevin Bailey's Real Crime-Solving Tips and Tricks. (Shawn and Kevin Bailey, as pretty much everybody knows, were the sons of world-famous detective Harris Bailey and the heroes of the Bailey Brothers books--they had their own crime lab and fixed their own cars and were basically the acest sleuths around.) The handbook had chapters full of things every serious gumshoe would need to know: stuff like "Tailing Baddies," "Making Your Own Blowgun," and " Modus Operandi , Portrait ParlÉ , and Other Funny Foreign Phrases for the American Sleuth." Steve stood and stared at his books. He looked around. Identical maroon bins stood like sentries outside every home on the street. The neighborhood was quiet. Assured that he was alone, Steve reached out and picked up a book: Bailey Brothers #15: The Phantom of Liar's Bluff , which started like this: © 2011 Mac Barnett Excerpted from It Happened on a Train by Mac Barnett All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.