A Bonafide Detective

Set during the Cuban missile crisis, this coming-of-age story follows a likable young boy as he tries to solve a mystery and find a young girl while dealing with the difficulties of adolescence.
Dewey “Doc” Ruggles doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere. Looking down on his bookish son, Doc’s father prefers the concrete world of numbers and science: “You live in books. You daydream like a girl. You think everything rhymes with moon, spoon, and June. Well, it doesn’t.” A polio survivor, Doc walks with a slight limp that, when combined with his glasses, doesn’t make him the most desirable guy in school. Still, the affable teen daydreams and thinks about his great-grandfather Rudyard Kipling, and when not in class, he spends time with his troubled friend Jimmy, scheming ways in which to get a girl to talk to them. “Skyfishing”— cutting loose a kite in hopes it lands near a girl, with whom a conversation can be started—is one of their preferred tactics. However, on Doc’s turn, he meets a young, unconventional nun after the kite lands on top of a Catholic church. She helps him reach the kite, though while he’s retrieving it, he sees something shocking in the church: a teenage girl, naked with a young priest. So begins part of the mystery: Sensing love at first sight, Doc must find the girl. Blended with the more serious attempt at solving the murder of Jimmy’s sister, the plot takes off as Doc traverses the pitfalls of being a high school student while trying to determine if he’s going crazy or becoming a bona fide detective. There are some legitimately funny parts—Doc’s Western civilization teacher offers some unintentionally hilarious lines regarding communists and supposed sympathizers, such as Arthur Miller—yet a few of the comedic notes miss their marks. At times, the novel can feel overpopulated with barely defined characters, which can lead to confusion while readers try to keep the characters straight. Still, there’s undeniable charm in Twombly’s work, as he mixes nostalgia for a slowly ending age of innocence with an engaging mystery that has hints of the supernatural.
An enjoyable, unconventional work for teenagers and adults alike.