Detective Beans & The Case of the Missing Hat

By Li Chen

Reviewed by Mia Macrossan

Li Chen was born in Beijing, China, and moved to New Zealand when she was five. Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat is her first graphic novel.

Detective Beans, in trench coat and hat, armed with a big magnifying glass is available for all you detecting needs 24/7, except weekdays when he has school, and not after 8pm as his mum says he is not allowed out that late.

When his own hat goes missing Beans is on a mission to get it back. As he says: ‘I can’t go detecting without my hat! It’s unprofessional!’. He is helped by his friend and neighbour Biscuits, an enterprising kitten good at disguises. The clues take Beans all over Cat Town where he encounters philosophical pigeons, dodgy street magicians, lounge singers and soup chefs, and even manages to catch a genuine bad guy.

The graphic art is lively, colourful, always attractive, sometimes even beautiful as in the full page where Beans is in the Trash Portal. Chen has an impressive ear for dialogue, changing the style to suit each situation. It can range from formal melodramatic English, (You vile ruffians…Never darken my doorway again’ to jazz speak, (Some old dude, looked kinda fancy. He had, like, those half-circle glasses, you know?), to ordinary Mum speak (It’s dark out. No place for two little kittens.) and more.

This story is hilarious, full of jokes, and amusing situations, Beans is a kid with a mission, he just happens to be a cat in a town where all the people are cats too. It is 205 colourful pages of action packed fun and recommended for school and home libraries. I do hope there will be a sequel.

Penguin 2024