Lion Down on the Job! Agent Lion by David Soman and Jacky Davis

The phone rang.

It was Ms. Chief from headquarters. "Agent Lion!" she said.

"Ms. Flamingo's cat, Fluffy, is missing!

And it's up to you to find him.

Agent Lion puts aside his toy cars, er, work, and hops on his red bike. He goes straight (with a few diversions for popcorn, donuts, pizza, a carousel and a circus) to Ms. Flamingo's apartment, where he interrogates the lady of the house, inspects the fridge for traces of jelly donuts, and requests a detailed description of the missing person. Ms. Flamingo is irate as she waves a photo of Fluffy in front of him.

"HE IS A CAT!" SHE SAYS.

Agent Lion checks the roof, where he ascertains that the resident pigeon is not a cat in disguise. He checks out the cake Mr. Wombat is baking and promises to inspect the finished product when it comes out of the oven.

Agent Lion is suspicious about an apartment that is too quiet so he bangs on the door, waking the sweet sleeping hippo twin babies. Now the apartment is no longer QUIET! To escape the noise, Agent Lion goes down to inspect the lobby and the mail room, where he skims the new issue of Jelly Donut Digest. Then he reports to Ms. Flamingo, still searching for her cat.

"Agent Lion, I've had enough! I'm going home for a cup of tea!"

Agent Lion accepts her polite offer of a cup of tea, and while he's waiting on her couch, he hears a suspicious sound emanating from among the sofa pillows.

"PURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..."

It's case closed and time for tea and some slices of Mr. Wombat's oven-fresh cake, in David Soman's and Jacky Davis' newest, Agent Lion (Harper, 2020). In their happily silly spoof of the bumbling gumshoe, whose "mane" search seems to be for jelly donuts, Agent Lion stumbles upon the solution to the missing feline case. Artist Davis provides the perfect black line water color illustrations which provide the humor in her portrayal of Ms. Flamingo's growing impatience with Lion's mainly gustatory investigation.

Jacky Davis and David Soman are the co-creators of the popular Ladybug Girl and sequels, as well as other notable picture books done on their own.