Encyclopedia Down

(Props to Monty)

Or

Encyclopedia Brown and the Metastasis

Donald J. Sobol, who showed that dorky kids can solve their police chief father’s cases decades before Veronica Mars, has died at the age of 87 of gastric lymphoma. Born before Wikipedia made encyclopedias obsolete, Leroy Brown earned his distinct nickname for the vast array of facts at his fingertips, which he would use to solve his father’s cases in time to enjoy a lovely dinner. Brown’s steel trap mind time and again kept local bully Bugs Meany in detention, while his friend and bodyguard Sally Kimball kept the smug dork from getting his ass beat. Unlike those efficient bastards Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, Sobol made sure to pause in Brown’s summations to give his kiddie readers the chance to compare their own deductions to the master. Over nearly 60 years, Sobol wrote 28 Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, earning a special Edgar Award for contributions to tedious unsolved crimes. The series has never been out of print and has been translated into 12 languages, with book sales in the millions.