Retro Re-Imagined: Encyclopedia Brown

One of my favorite series of books growing up was Encyclopedia Brown, which followed a 10-year-old boy who remembered everything he'd ever read or learned.  His and his friend Sally solved crimes and mysteries around the town of Idaville, and occasionally Leroy (his real name) would help his father the police chief solve crimes at the dinner table.

Author Donald J. Sobol described Brown as having read so much, "whenever he did cartwheels it sounded like a whole library full of bookshelves were falling over in his head".  He was very methodical during his investigations, especially during the cases he worked for his father; he would always close his eyes when concentrating the hardest, then ask a single question that would help him crack the case.

Sobol relied on logical inconsistencies that required readers to pay very close attention.  This dates some of his earlier books, which assumed the reader knew the rules of etiquette or other now-archaic knowledge.  However, Sobol has continued to faithfully publish books in the series through 2010, and the years of inflation still haven't changed the boy detective's fee of 25 cents per case.

But what if Encyclopedia Brown were re-imagined from the ground up, a new creation of the digital information age?  Would he be intended for children, adults, or somewhere in between?  Would he even still be the "boy" detective?

The New Encyclopedia Brown?

Because Encyclopedia is such a well-known and well-developed character, I'm loathe to change anything about him.  So for our first re-imagining, let's simply move the clock forward until an heir to the "Encyclopedia" name comes along.

The year is 2010.  Boy detective Leroy Brown is now Dr. Brown, a university professor and consultant for law enforcement agencies across the world.  He married his childhood sweetheart and sleuthing partner, Sally Kimball, and they're raising a young daughter of their own named Hellen.  Like her father, Hellen doesn't really like her first name and prefers to go by her nickname "Chief", which is what her retired grandfather calls her when he comes to visit and regale her with tales of his crime-fighting days as the town police chief.

The younger "Chief" Brown has her mother's spitfire nature, and isn't content to sit back and wait for clients to come by her garage and drop a coin into her can.  She hears rumors and gossip, eavesdrops on her parents and neighbors, and decides that since her father's too busy and often away she'll solve the "mysteries" that no one ever looks into.  She does this with the aid of her friend Mason Meany; son of the once-notorious "Bugs" Meany, Mason is a timid bookworm who is constantly harassed by his father to be "smart as ol' Encyclopedia was".  He provides a logical, introverted counter to Hellen's fiery, take-charge style of sleuthing.

Together they solve the same kinds of crimes and logic puzzles that Dr. Brown used to deal with when he was ten years old.  Chief Brown is a bit more reckless than her father, but when she finds herself stumped she closes her eyes and concentrates on everything she's seen and heard in her investigation... and just the right question she needs to ask pops into her mind, as if her father had been there the whole time encouraging her to slow down and think things through.

The Dangerous World of Encyclopedia Brown

In this re-imagining, all the "safeties" about Encyclopedia Brown universe are removed.  "The Dangerous World" would be a TV crime serial that follows Encyclopedia in his work as a much higher class of detective: the CIA.

Encyclopedia is a brilliant analyst the CIA has loaned to the Washington, D.C. branch of the FBI as part of a pilot program to help identify threats to national security.  Once there he finds himself reporting to Special Agent in Charge Sally Wiggins, who married Encyclopedia's childhood foil and con artist Wilford Wiggins, now a U. S. Congressman.  There are unresolved issues between Brown and Kimball, who did not part on good terms after graduating from school:  it keeps their partnership tense even as they begin to fall into old habits, Sally kicking in doors while Encyclopedia asks the questions.

The cases assigned to them take them from Capitol Hill to Europe and the Middle East; along the way Brown's encyclopedic knowledge of even minute laws and customs and his incredible powers of observation are able to prevent assassinations, political coups and other domestic and global threats.  However, his powers have come at a price: the sacrificing of his personal life, the alienation of both his former friends and his parents, and even his mental health.  At some point even the Encyclopedia runs out of pages, and Brown finds himself battling nervous breakdowns or other mental and emotional hardships that come with his formidable gifts.