Belly Up
The world’s most famous hippopotamus is dead.
It was hard to miss this brightly colored book with the large hippopotamus while strolling around the bookstore. As it happens, I was looking for a good mystery when I came across this one (for pretweens) and had to pick it up. And when I read the flap, I just thought it sounded as good as the cover looked – too cute (in that hippo homicide kinda way).
Henry Hippo was the mascot of FunJungle, a gigantic zoo/theme park that is America’s newest tourism sensation. The park’s top brass claims he died of natural causes, but twelve-year-old Teddy Fitzroy suspects foul play. When the police refuse to take him seriously, Teddy sets out to uncover the truth himself – and ends up in two tons of trouble. Turns out Henry wasn’t as loveable as the park PR department wanted everyone to believe – and a staggering number of people wanted him dead. The deeper Teddy digs, the more dangerous it gets in this mystery that combines corruption, betrayal, deadly animals – and an even deadlier killer.
