Along with school stories and fantasy, middle-grade fiction frequently has mysteries. Sleuths have a huge appeal for younger readers—and older ones, if we’re being honest—from classics like The Westing Game and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler to more recent works like the Enola Holmes series. Canine Investigator Chris delves into various trends that make middle-grade mystery so fascinating, chief among them the intelligent animal of the title. Chris is one of the four first novels for Yen Press’s middle-grade light novel line. This middle-grade light novel, The Shiba Inu Detective Tracks Down the Stolen Jewels!, is the best so far since it combines the tenacious young investigator with an always engaging dog character.
Though the cover and title may lead you to believe otherwise, Chris is not a talking canine that uses human tagalongs to solve crimes. That is far from the reality of the story; Chris, which is short for Christie, is a trained police canine chosen for his exceptional talent despite his breed. (The text notes that German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers are more common police dogs; nonetheless, I think Belgian Malinois are the preferred breed in many areas.) Chris was taught by detective Kobayashi, his handler, but on their first case, something goes wrong. Kobayashi instructs Chris to flee before he disappears, and Chris develops a fear of flying insects as a result of a horrific bee experience. Due of these two problems, Chris retires from the police and is given to his grandson by a dog trainer.
Chris, in essence, starts his life as a typical pet at the beginning of the novel. The protagonist of the story and Chris’s new owner, Hinata, is a quiet fifth-grader who primarily interacts with her boisterous and energetic friend Mayuka. Despite the fact that Hinata’s father works as a groomer and his mother is a veterinarian, he has never owned a pet of his own. His parents have perplexingly told him that he cannot have a pet because it would cause problems at the clinic. Every veterinarian and vet tech I know owns multiple animals, so this is the single most weird aspect of the story, and every time it came up, it pulled me out of the narrative.
Luckily, this is a mystery, and the book does a good job with that particular section. There are two main narrative points: a local jeweler’s business that is small is broken into, and Hinata and Mayuka are aware of an odd behavior from a college student. The kids realize Chris might be able to return a lost earphone to its owner when they see him sniffing it curiously after they locate it close to the crime scene. They find college student Takaki’s behavior strange when they arrive at his flat after instructing him to follow its scent. Before they even know what they’re doing, they become entangled in the relationship between Takaki’s actions and the looted store, and even more astonishingly, they start to suspect that this case might be connected to Chris’s former partner’s disappearance.
There are times of true danger, and the writing is taut and doesn’t talk down to its presumed readership of eight to twelve-year-olds, the normal middle-grade population. Mayuka and Hinata complement each other nicely, and they know when they’re doing something foolish, like getting into an unfamiliar car. They aren’t stopped, but at least they realize that they should be doing something different—like visiting their local police station—which maintains the situation feeling both genuine and thrilling. This is reflected in the pacing, which never slows down for an extended period of time but also avoids sprinting forward at an unbelievably fast pace. Hinata has time to reflect and use the skills he’s learned from his grandfather, a police dog trainer. Though sometimes she wishes he would work faster, Mayuka’s recklessness beautifully counterbalances Hinata’s reserve. She also respects his ability to consider things through and put the puzzle pieces together. Although there is always a chance that animal detective novels would feel too twee for their own good, especially for this and the chapter book age range, Chris, for his part, is never presented as anything more than a very smart decent dog.
The first book by Canine Detective Chris is excellent. Compared to some of the other books in this line, it more easily falls into the middle-grade genre. The mystery is compelling and well-written, and the characters are well-developed. It also serves as a highly organic preface to the next book, revealing early on how interconnected everything is more than anyone could have imagined. The author, Tomoko Tabe, skillfully incorporates dog-related information, including breed-specific and general care, making this book suitable for both mystery lovers and young canines. As an adult reader, it’s also pretty damn fun, with some good Easter eggs hidden largely in the names—Kobayashi, from Edogawa Ranpo’s Akechi Kogoro series, and Christie for Agatha Christie—who leads Akechi’s rendition of the Baker Street Irregulars. Light mystery readers of all ages will find this simple to recommend, which is, in my opinion, the sign of a quality children’s novel.
