Gr. 2-3. In this, his sixteenth book, kid detective Nate the Great tells how he solved two cases at once with the help of his faithful dog Sludge. First case: Who put a valentine ("I LOVE SLUDGE MORE THAN FUDGE") on Sludge's doghouse? Second case: Who swiped the valentine Annie was making for her little brother? Clothed in deerstalker and trench coat, Nate visits the scenes of the crimes, gathers clues, interviews witnesses, eats pancakes, and puts his little gray cells to work to solve the mysteries. In the end, Nate retreats to Sludge's doghouse to avoid receiving a mushy valentine. Nate makes a great narrator, his clipped prose mimicking that of the hard-boiled detective genre, providing short, simple sentences for beginning readers, and setting up the deadpan humor.
