Huge by James W. Fuerst

Eugene Smalls is a troubled 12 year old boy growing up in the 1980’s. He has a history of violence (he once hit his art teacher and knocked her out), is highly paranoid (he believes his sister has become a drug mule for the nefarious Darren, a high schooler who  tags the town with graffiti) and rides around on his handmade bicycle (it resembles a chopper and has a banana seat) with his best friend (who is named Thrash and is actually a stuffed animal).

What makes life so bad for Eugene? It is hard to say. It could be that people refuse to call him by his chosen nickname, Huge. It could be because his dad left when he was younger. Or it could be that his grandmother forced him to read lots of pulp crime  and mystery novels (the works of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and even Sherlock Homes) after he was suspended from hitting his teacher. Or it could be that he has a penchant for interpreting his life like Philip Marlowe would a case (distant, distrusting, a bit too self-serious).

But whatever is bothering him, his summer before the sixth grade is going to be a doozy. His grandmother lives at the local retirement home, and she just so happens to have a case for the aspiring private eye. Someone has tagged the retirement home’s sign, and now the sign reads retarted home. Huge isn’t sure what pisses him off more, the tagging or the misspelling of retarded.

But he takes the case and sets off to nab the perpetrator. The fiend is out there, and it could be anyone, because Huge knows that everyone is out to get him. He just has to narrow the list down. With his stuffed animal to help him, and his sweet ride of a bike, Huge is going to knock heads, grill the suspects, and watch out for the damsel in distress, that is unless his mother doesn’t get him a babysitter first.

This is a great book and I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a humorous coming of age story or an homage to the great pulp detectives of the past. It is appropriate for ages 16 and up.