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Fake Mustache

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Fake Mustache: Or, How Jodie O'Rodeo and her Wonder Horse (And Some Nerdy Kid) Saved the U.S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind
by Tom Angleberger
Amulet, 2012.  196 pgs. Fiction

     When Lenny Flem Jr.'s best friend Casper buys a Heidelberg Handlebar Number Seven mustache ($129.99) at Sven's Fair Price Store and a junior-size Man-About-Town suit at Clancy's Big & Small Short & Tall clothiers, everything changes. The Heidelberg gives Casper power over the minds of just about everyone and he uses that power to rob banks, the Federal Gold Reserve, and then to buy the Heidelberg Novelty Company, makers of the voting machines used in presidential elections. Only Lenny and former child star of stage and screen Jodie O'Rodeo and her Wonder Horse Soymilk know what Casper is up to, and their adventures and efforts to stop him from seizing the presidency and moving from there to world domination include but are not restricted to: chatting up a state legislator who eats Jello with chopsticks, diving into the Fake Booger Works vats at Heidelberg Novelty, and using a Heidelberg Ultra-Sticky-Stretchy Grabber Hand to stop a speeding . . . . But I won't ruin the ending. An early reference to The Hoboken Chicken Emergency reveals Fake Mustache to be something of an homage to Daniel Pinkwater. It is a brave man who takes on The Master, but Angleberger proves himself a worthy disciple and perhaps successor to the Great One in this book as well as his others.

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