For younger tweens. Loved the talking dog! Not enough dogs talk like Sam Spade - just saying. ( )

I was very disappointed in this, the art is engaging and the story idea quite clever but the writing was so juvenile and stilted, it felt like an adult trying to "talk" the way they think kids do and for me it came across as vaguely insulting. I realize I'm not the age group this was aimed at but it felt like it was talking down and over simplifying things.
Again the art is amazing, I love the idea of a Chicago setting and there are good story ideas and potential here, sadly it was just never fully realized. Hopefully future books in the series improve and this is just a case of an author having to force to much of the exposition of the world into a short book. ( )

The Drained Brains Caper is the first of the graphic novel series Chicagoland Detective Agency, is written by Inkpot Award winning author Trina Robbins and illustrated by Eisner Award nominee Tyler Page.
The Chicagoland Detective Agency pilot book tells about how the three members happened to meet: dynamic and spunky Megan Yamamura; quick-witted and level-headed computer genius Raf Hernandez; and Bradley, the brains of the operation. In their first caper, Megan travels to a new city and gets put into a private summer school but would rather hang out with her new friend, Raf. The school is actually the personal lab of the story’s villain, Dr. Vorschak, and through her the pair meet Bradley, the villains first experimental subject. All three manage to escape and foil the plans of the evil doctor and rescue all the other students. Afterwards, Bradley convinces the other two to help him set up the Detective Agency.
The Drained Brains Caper is a fun pre-teen graphic novel that will appeal to readers interested in the mystery genre. The Chicagoland Detective Agency series has a promising start with this book.

This black and white comic for upper elementary and up is about a 13 year old girl who's trying to make it in a new school. There's something bizarre about her classmates. Will she and the pet shop boy figure it out before she becomes one of them? Sassy humor. Expressive line drawings with a manga feel.

I love the city of Chicago, so when I was perusing the books available on NetGalley the other day and discovered a book titled, Chicagoland Detective Agency, Vol 1: The Drained Brains Caper, I thought that I'd give the book a try, even though I knew nothing about it. Well, Chicagoland Detective Agency, Vol 1: The Drained Brains Caper is a fun, short, youngish, manga-ish graphic novel that follows the adventures of Raf, Megan and Bradley (a talking dog) as they come together and form the Chicagoland Detective Agency.

Megan is new to the Chicagoland area and in search of a tarantula. She happens into Raf's mother's pet food store, hoping maybe to find a tarantula (or maybe just a new friend) and an unlikely friendship forms between Raf and Megan. Megan is sent to a summer school called the Stepford Preparatory Academy, where all the teachers and students are mysteriously happy and content with life (I know, I know... I didn't say that the book was challenging...) and where Megan certainly doesn't fit in. When Megan is forced to see the school appointed psychiatrist, she discovers the secret behind the perfect students and faculty, and only Raf and Bradley (who they rescue along the way) can save Megan.

This is not a particularly challenging book in the slightest, but I think for the age group that it's geared at (Amazon says 9-12, but I'd be willing to bet that a slightly younger audience would still appreciate this book), it would be a perfect book for kids. The writing is fun and witty and the art is engaging and stylish. If you've got a younger one that is interested in reading and likes manga or graphic novels, I don't think you could go wrong with this selection. ( )