(Foolish Diversion) reads kind of like someone lifted characters from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and put them in a James Cagney movie with a Capra-esque social consciousness, but it all works quite delightfully.  The characters are varied and intriguing.  Even the minor characters are deftly drawn and interesting.  Take, for example, pretentious Winston, newly rich, dapper dresser (complete with shiny tophat) and malapropist: ("Welcome to my humble chapeau!" he tells the intrepid reporters who have come to write a feature on his blackberry juice business).  Small details like Triple T’s love of a cuppa tea and Herman’s penchant for oatmeal cookies add a charming verisimilitude to the goings-on.  Filled with enough tangles and twists in the plot to keep even adult readers guessing, and prose which doesn’t talk down to its targeted audience, Foolish Diversion:  A Triple T and Herman Mystery is a clever and fun read.

 

Jackie Walsh

Author of:  Restoration Adaptations of Four of Shakespeare’s Comedies
(Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000).
Professor of English at McNeese State University

 

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This charming book presents a full cast of vivid characters in a tale of civic responsibility and political conniving.  In the end it is dedicated to “common sense and common good” in the face of public fear and private greed, but along the way there is a rich mixture of news, reporting, wine making, Julius Caesar, ship wreck, and a squirrel afraid of heights.

   
Bob Cooper

Author of "The Camp: A Memory Book 1941-1945"

(Writers House, 1988)

 

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