By Joe McGee
Illustrated by Jannie Ho
Simon Spotlight / Simon & Schuster, 2026
111 pages
979-8-3471-0170-2
Ages 5-9
Famous bug detective Sherlock Roach and his trusty sidekick, Dr. Wormston, are reading the newspaper in their dapper duds (bowtie and deerstalker hat for Sherlock, waistcoat and bowler for Wormston) when there’s a knock at the door. Lucille the Ladybug has been robbed! Someone stole a delicious, crunchy crumb from her home behind the flour jar. Sherlock and Wormston accept the case and begin questioning shady suspects like Fast Eddie the Fly, Old Twitch the Grasshopper, and Greasy Pearl the Centipede. After each interrogation, Sherlock uses logic to deduce the details of the crime. Wormston, an excellent assistant and a good foil for Sherlock, asks critical questions that explain Sherlock’s actions to the reader. Why, for example, did Sherlock rules out Fast Eddie so quickly? Well, his alibi (caring for his wiggling, needy maggots) checks out. “If he’d stolen the crumb, his kids would have been all over it,” Sherlock deduces. Humorous details, like how Sherlock rubs his antenna together when he’s deep in thought, and old timey exclamations like “The game is afoot!” breathe fresh air into this creepy-crawly crime procedural reboot. Easy-to-follow panels, short blocks of text, and animated, two-color illustrations make this an appealing read for newly independent readers. This graphic novel concludes with a section called “Fun Facts about Bugs!”, which offers six facts about each featured insect. ©2026 Cooperative Children’s Book Center